ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has failed in his application to prevent City Press from publishing details of a trust fund, the newspaper’s editor Ferial Haffajee said on Saturday.
Haffajee said Judge Colin Lamont had found that Malema was a public figure and that publishing the story was in the public interest.
Speaking in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Saturday, Lamont had also referred to a range of other judgments made in similar public interest case, “all of which re-affirm … the free speech principle”.
He found the evidence contained in the City Press story — which will be published on Sunday — to be “credible”.
Haffajee said the story, which relied on “primary sources”, dealt with a trust fund her newspaper’s investigation had uncovered and “began tracing the money flow”.
‘I don’t know how much money is in the trust,” she said.
Malema’s legal team had sought an urgent interdict to prevent the paper publishing the story, reportedly arguing that his public image could be seriously damaged if details of the trust fund were published.
City Press opposed the application.
Earlier this week, Malema said that it was “nobody’s business” where he got his money from.
He called the media briefing at the time to respond to a Sunday Independent report last weekend that he was building himself a house worth R16-million in Sandown, Johannesburg.
ANC Youth League spokesperson Floyd Shivambu was not immediately available for comment. – Sapa