TIMES DEFAMATION CASE POSTPONED

SITEKI – The trial for the criminal defamation case against The Times of Swaziland Group of Newspapers and its Managing Editor (ME), Martin Dlamini, was postponed yesterday due to certain reasons, among them the disappearance of written submissions by the defence attorney.

Lawyer Banele Gamedze, who is representing the Times of Swaziland, Dlamini (ME) and Mbongeni Ndlela (former news reporter), revealed that the written submissions he filed last Friday had gone missing.
Gamedze told the court that he filed his written submissions with the office of the court’s clerk but they were nowhere to be seen when he searched for them yesterday morning.

“Mr Shongwe (a court clerk) has made an undertaking to look for them,” Gamedze said, while further telling the court that he had made means to reprint the submissions, which were saved in soft copy.

Gamedze further told the court that he had attached to the written submission, a case law (a copy of a court case he had cited in his argument).
He made these revelations after Crown Council Patrick Mkhatjwa had applied that the matter be postponed on the grounds that he had not been served with a copy of the court case, which the defence attorney had cited in his arguments on May 10, 2016, when the matter was last heard in court.

“I did not receive the case law to enable us to adequately respond to his application,” said Mkhatjwa.
He further told the court that the Crown intended handing in its own written submissions, further stating that by June 21, 2016, the Crown would have served both the defence attorney and the magistrate with its written submissions.

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