Former presidential aide Allan Ntata has dismissed defamation charges levelled against him by President Peter Mutharika.
Mutharika took Ntata, former legal adviser to his brother, the late Bingu, and online publication Nyasa Times, following published reports that linked the President to the plunder of K92 billion in public funds.
In his defence dated October 5 2015 filed by his lawyer Gustav Kaliwo, Ntata said he was not responsible for the publication of the alleged articles.
Read the documents filed in court: “He [Ntata] was not the author, editor or publisher of the statement. He did not know, and had no reason to believe, that what he wrote on his Facebook page caused or contributed to the publication of any defamatory statement.”
Ntata claims that his statement on Facebook referred to matters that were commonly available in the social media and in the public domain and that he innocently wrote about the issues not knowing that they would be published or contained defamatory matters.
He also claims that in a democracy, he was under moral and social duty to comment on matters of public interest that were circulating in the social media.
Ntata then reminded Mutharika about the public scrutiny that goes with his office.
Ntata also denies that he intends to publish further articles on the matter and that the President suffered any loss or damage due to the articles on his Facebook page. n
