Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The Lawyers representing Affirmative Repositioning leader Job Amupanda in a N$ 1 million lawsuit against him by Deputy Finance Minister Maureen Hinda-Mbuende said in the latest status report that they would not be available to start the hearing until August.
Hinda-Mbuende is suing Amupanda was set to be heard in August.
According to court documents filed at the High Court, Kadhila Amoomo and his colleague Samson Enkali said they will only be available for trial in August 2023.
“As per the Court Order dated 15th February 2023, Mr Amoomo is not available for trial for any date before August 2023. Both Counsels have no available dates before August 2023,” read the documents.
High Court Judge Collins Parker has since indicated that he is available from 7 – 11 August to hear the defamation suit. In the suit, Hinda-Mbuende claims Amupanda’s post on social media on 28 July 2021 was defamatory and caused damage to her reputation.
Amupanda allegedly posted a picture of an unknown woman clad in jeans and a white t-shirt and captioned it “It looks like deputy minister of finance Maureen Hinda during the liberation struggle. Maureen was soo WizWiz. It’s like she won’t think twice about taking a knife out.”(sic)
Hinda-Mbuende claims the post was meant to be understood by the public that the woman in the picture was her in her youthful days, that she was a street girl ready to fight at a moment’s notice.Furthermore, she is claiming the Facebook post had 511 comments, 2800 reactions and it was shared 39 times. Amupanda who has refused to apologize has since denied defaming the Hinda-Mbuende, stating that it was never his intention to portray the deputy minister as a “cougar” who has a “penchant for younger men”.
