Africa-Press – Namibia. A VIDEO clip in which a northern Namibian teacher claimed Fishrot scandal-accused James Hatuikulipi had provided first lady Monica Geingos to president Hage Geingob as a wife was hurtful and offensive, Geingos told a judge in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
“I was deeply offended by that comment,” Geingos testified before judge Orben Sibeya during the hearing of a defamation claim in which she is suing teacher Abed Hishoono for N$350 000.
“It’s offensive; it implies that I’m a commodity that can be bought or sold,” Geingos said, after telling the judge that statements which Hishoono made in a video recording distributed through the WhatsApp social media app in February last year were false and hurtful to herself and also her children.
It appeared to her that Hishoono, who is a member of the Independent Patriots for Change, “made the statements to score cheap political points at the expense of my reputation and dignity”, Geingos said.
“There was an attempt to delegitimise the president and to achieve that I was [defamed],” she said.
Geingos said claims made by Hishoono in the video recording – in which he also alleged that Hatuikulipi and Geingos had been involved in a relationship, that Hatuikulipi was the father of one of the first lady’s children, and that she was a shareholder in the aviation company Westair, which he blamed for the demise of Air Namibia – were all false and defamatory.
She told the court she and Hatuikulipi went to the same school and university and knew each other from their involvement in the financial sector as well. She said they were friends, but although Hatuikulipi and the president know each other, they are not friends.
She and Hatuikulipi never had a sexual relationship or a child together as Hishoono claimed, Geingos said.
She said Hishoono’s claim on that score was hurtful not only to herself, but to her children as well, and it was because she wanted to protect her children and also her own dignity that she decided to sue Hishoono.
Also testifying yesterday, Hishoono said the collapse of Air Namibia triggered the making of the video recording, which he posted on a WhatsApp group of which he was part.
He said he did not intend to distribute the video clip to the public, but only to a group of his friends on social media, and Geingos was not supposed to see the video.
The claims he made about Geingos and Hatuikulipi, he said, were “national hearsay” about which he did not have personal knowledge.
“It was just circulated stories on social media,” he said.
On his claim that Hatuikulipi provided Geingos as a wife to the president, Hishoono said: “That’s what the rumour said. I was just repeating the rumour.”
Hishoono further told the court he apologised to Geingos on social media after he realised he had no confirmation of the claims he had made.
She did not accept his apology, because it was not sincere, Geingos told the judge.
Sibeya is set to hear closing arguments in the matter from lawyer Sisa Namandje, who is representing Geingos, and from Hishoono, who is not represented by a lawyer, today.
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