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ENSafricaâs Leonard Katz vindicated. 00:01
âAccusing any person, let alone an attorney, of corruption and/or fraud is about as serious and damaging an allegation as can be madeâ â judgment. Image: Shutterstock
The media is in a powerful position to uncover the truth and expose wrongdoing for the public good.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his second day of testimony to the Zondo Commission in regard to state capture and the Gupta Leaks, said: âI must commend the media for playing such a patriotic role, in the way they have followed all this through. They often make us [politicians] very uncomfortable.â
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Noseweek Editor Martin Welz and his publishing company, Chaucer Publications, have been ordered to pay R330,000 in damages to attorney Leonard Katz for the publication of articles and a front cover alleging he was the “man who stole justice”.
The articles related to allegations by Ian Brakspear, a Durban North businessman. Brakspear claimed that Katz, a director of Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs (ENS) who was representing Nedprop, had through “fraudulent schemes” swindled him out of his family’s Cape wine farm through a “fraudulent” liquidation process.
Brakspear’s claims were tested in a lengthy trial before Judge Frans Kgomo who ruled in 2014 that he was “unbalanced and irrational” and cleared banks and lawyers he had implicated of any wrongdoing.