Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi faces jail time as judge finds him to be in contempt of court
High Court has found controversial blogger Cyprian Nyakundi to have acted in contempt of court for publishing information about a mobile telecommunication company’s boss while attacking the media industry.
The verdict comes just a day after he blew his own trumpet about a possibility of winning his defamation suit against popular NTV journalist Larry Madowo.
“It is clear the article has nexus to Safaricom’s Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore in relation to the matter before court, he therefore ought to have kept off commenting in the media,” Justice Lucy Njuguna said.
DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS
The dispute started way back in June when Mr Collymore and his predecessor Michael Joseph sued the blogger for publishing alleged defamatory statements about them.
Lady Justice Njuguna issued temporary orders stopping Mr Nyakundi from making any further publications on his blog- cnyakundi.com about the two.
He, however, told court that he had not been served with the case documents or the order.
But when he was summoned to appear in court in person to explain himself in person, he apologized for his behaviour while claiming that his posts were merely fair comments on a public interest matter.
Despite this apology, he went ahead and published another article disparaging Mr Collymore.
It is this article that prompted the two to drag the matter to court again with Mr Collymore claiming that he has suffered substantial damage to his reputation owing to the blogger’s disparaging view of him in the said piece.
MEDIA INDUSTRY
But then Mr Nyakundi argued that these claims had not been properly taken before the court and that his story simply featured corruption surrounding media industry.
He also claimed that he did not intend to discredit Mr Collymore or even mention his name in the said article.
But the judge ruled that the blogger ought to have sought clarification from the court if he found any difficulty with the orders issued.
“In the circumstances, he is found to be in contempt,” Lady Justice Njuguna ruled.
The case will be coming up on January 19 when he will be expected to be fined or sent to jail after a one last chance of telling the court whether he is remorseful or not as a consideration factor before he is sentenced.
