A Wagani Committal Court magistrate has dismissed a defamatory publication charge against a woman after the court found insufficient evidence.
Margret Kekolo who appeared before the court mention to set a date for trial yesterday walked out freely after Magistrate Albert Daniels dismissed her charge due to insufficient evidence.
After going through the case several times, Daniels found that since Margret was found guilty of the charge on December 19th, 2023, the police prosecutor at that time did not prepare the summary of facts for the charges.
Daniels said the matter was adjourned to the 20th of December for the Prosecutor to prepare the facts.
However, the facts were not prepared until the matter appeared again in court yesterday.
Therefore, Daniels asked the Police Prosecutor to read out the facts.
According to the Police Prosecutor, on 25th of June 2023, Margret a resident at Gordons had an argument with the complainant over a family matter.
The Court found that the complainant and Margert both are married to two brothers.
According to the facts, Margret was found guilty of sending a defamatory message to the complainant during the time of the argument, calling her names.
While representing herself in Court, Margert clarified that the message was a private message sent via her mobile phone to the complainant and not via any social media platforms.
“Text messages when it is sent to multiple people can be used as defamatory, but for your case it states that the message was sent only to one person, meaning there is no third party involved in this matter so it is not a defamatory matter,” Daniels said.
Daniels then ruled on the verdict to dismiss the charges laid against Margert.
Meanwhile, the Magistrate warned Margret to solve this issue with the complainant and refrain from describing people through phone SMS or social media because there are consequences to such matters.