Court dismisses prostitute-slur case for lack of evidence
By Charles Musonda
A MATERO businesswoman who dragged her neighbour to court for drunkenly branding her a prostitute has walked away empty-handed after a local court threw out her case on grounds that it lacked merit and evidence to support her allegations.
Matero Local Court Magistrate Kafula Ngoma dismissed the defamation case filed by Lukia Phiri, 37, against her neighbour Belinda Katunga, 28, after finding that Phiri’s complaint fell short of the legal threshold required to establish defamation of character.
While dismissing the case, Justice Ngoma did not spare Katunga either and sternly warned her to change her social conduct and to resist the urge of hurling insults at others whenever she was drunk, especially those older than her.
“You are just too young and it helps to have respect. Don’t shout anyhow, go and change, humble yourself, and work on your behavior. Be mindful of the words you use if beer is not suitable for you,” Justice Ngoma said.
Justice Ngoma also dealt Phiri a second blow by declaring that a phone recording she had secretly made of Katunga was illegal, inadmissible and a criminal offence under Zambia’s new cyber laws as it had been captured without the defendant’s knowledge or consent.
Phiri told the court that Katunga had insulted her on two separate occasions, first when she accompanied an elderly neighbour to the same court after the old woman had successfully won a K3, 000 claim against Katunga for insulting her, and again when Phiri herself filed the current defamation case against her.
She implored the court to discipline Katunga because insulting others was not a solution whenever a dispute arose within the neighborhood.
In her defence, Katunga admitted to shouting at a group of women in Matero’s Maiteneke section, but insisted she had been provoked beyond endurance by neighbours who had made a habit of mocking her and her siblings as the children of a female drunkard who could never find a husband.
Katunga told the court that the same women’s meddling and gossip had already cost her dearly by peddling falsehoods to her first husband the moment he was released from prison.
She testified that this destroying her first marriage and that they were now doing the same to her current relationship.
