Prosecutor requests acquittal of Mozambican journalist Matias Guente

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Prosecutor requests acquittal of Mozambican journalist Matias Guente

2:57 CAT | 19 Jul 2018

Photo: Canalmoz

A public prosecutor yesterday requested the acquittal of the editor of the weekly newspaper Canal de Moçambique on charges of slander and defamation occasioned by a caricature depicting a former administrator of the Bank of Mozambique.

“Calling for the conviction of the defendant could amount to a huge setback in the freedoms and fundamental rights that citizens have,” said Carlos Banze, a public prosecutor who intervened in the case.

Banze said he didn’t find the cartoon in question offensive to the honour of the former administrator of the Bank of Mozambique Joana Matsombe, but rather acceptable within the context in which it was produced in the weekly newspaper.

The representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that, as the holder of a public office, at the time, Joana Matsombe should be prepared for a greater exposure to public scrutiny.

“Everyone who holds public office is susceptible to public scrutiny, and it is not fitting to use criminal law to criminalise opinion, which will intimidate citizens,” he said.

In its indictment at the beginning of the trial on June 29, the Public Prosecutor’s Office asked for the editor in chief of Canal de Moçambique, Matias Guente, to be sentenced to one year and six months’ imprisonment and to pay two million meticais (28,700 Euros) to Joana Matsombe.

Joana Matsombe instigated charges against Canal de Moçambique in 2017 on the grounds of libel and slander in the cartoon, in which she appears in a bathing suit in the company of former governor of the Bank of Mozambique Ernesto Gove, bare-chested and wearing shorts.

The legend read “Nosso Banco” and “Supervisão Bancária” [“Banking Supervision”].

The cartoon, in a series of stories about O Nosso Banco, the editor of the Mozambique Channel said that the newspaper sought to criticise the negligence of the supervision of the Mozambican bank regulator in the bankruptcy of the said financial institution.

The sentence in Matias Guente’s trial will be read on August 29.

Source: Lusa