Nyali MP Mohamed Ali has been awarded Ksh 1 Million in damages after winning a defamation case against the Star Newspaper.
The award was issued by a Nairobi court after it was determined that the newspaper had indeed defamed the former KTN journalist in a story it published. The court also directed The Star to foot the bill of the suit.
The MP moved to court after the newspaper published a story alleging that he had sacked three constituency employees over a Constituency Development Fund (CDF) saga – that was linked to Ali himself.
Ali told the court that the publication had tainted his reputation after it implied that he had embezzled monies meant for the people.
The legislator argued through his lawyers that the newspaper had gone ahead to publish a lopsided story – after it failed to get his side of the story.
This is said denied him the right of reply when it went with only one side of the story.
The court found the paper culpable stating that it had misrepresented the facts in the story which was published on March 10, 2019.
“Owing to the fact that the plaintiff was afforded a right of reply and a clarification was published on May 11and 12, 2019, which sought to make clarifications and directly apologise to the plaintiff, and taking into consideration the provisions under Section 16 A of the Defamation Act Cap 36 of the Laws of Kenya, I award the plaintiff a sum of Sh1,000,000 as general damages for the tort of defamation,” the judgment read in part.