Mkhachani Samuel Maringa gave notice last week that he is dropping the defamation suit against Limpopo Mirror and offered to pay the legal costs incurred thus far.

Maringa, via his attorney, Mr Khutso Mpai, filed papers in the Louis Trichardt Magistrate’s Court in March this year, claiming R100 000 from the paper for alleged defamation. He claimed that the newspaper had carried an article more than three years ago about the death of a family member who was murdered near Mbhalati village at Malamulele. The family member, Mr Moses Maringa, was brutally murdered on Friday, 26 March, 2010. He was a well-known Venda musician and his body was found next to a burnt-out vehicle.

Zoutnet, publishers of the Limpopo Mirror, immediately filed an exception in the court, stating that it was impossible to plead to the accusations. Their legal representative, Dr Rudolph, argued that the claim of defamation was simply nonsensical. Attorney Mpai never explained how they linked an article about a musician’s death to defamation.

In the papers filed by Mpai, he states that the newspaper did not ask permission from the family to carry the story. He also argues, on behalf of Maringa, that a family member had only learnt about the death when she read about it in the newspaper a week after the incident. She was apparently so traumatized that she died.

Dr Rudolph asked the court to instruct the plaintiff to remove all the sections that made no legal or grammatical sense.

Khutso Mpai Attorneys sent notice last week that they were no longer continuing with the case and that they would reimburse Zoutnet for the legal costs incurred in defending the matter.