Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries leader Prophet Walter Magaya has threatened to sue The Zimbabwe Mail newspaper over a story it published this week claiming that he had paid $150,000 to a man who was suing him for adultery.
Prophet Magaya was at the centre of an alleged illicit affair between him and Denford Mutashu’s wife.
The PHD front man’s lawyer Advocate Thabani Mpofu wrote to the The Zimbabwe Mail seeking retraction.
He gave the paper until Tuesday to make the retraction, failure of which he would sue.
The story complained of was published in the paper’s edition of Wednesday under the headline “Adultery saga: Magaya settles out of court”, which claimed that the popular man of cloth had hammered an out-of-court settlement with Mutashu.
According to the report that was the reason why Mutashu withdrew the case against Prophet Magaya.
But Adv Mpofu said the report was patently false and ridiculous and demanded a retraction.
“We’re therefore instructed to demand. . . an immediate retraction of the insinuation that our client induced the withdrawal of the adultery claim through settling the matter,” said Adv Mpofu.
“That you give such retraction the prominence that has been given to the offending articles and . . . give a firm undertaking that such kind of offence will no more recur.”
Adv Mpofu said as if not enough, the paper in its follow up article published yesterday under the title “Mutashu speaks out on Magaya sex saga” the inane allegation was repeated quoting unnamed sources.
“The allegations that you make about our client having paid for adultery that he never committed are astounding and an act of criminal nuisance,” he said.
“We place it on record that no such payment was ever made, none was ever contemplated and none will ever be made by either our client or those associated in any way with him or otherwise acting on his instructions.
“Those who have been making such allegations must slough off the dreamy sentimentality on the basis upon which they have been prepared to entertain such hopeless views.”
Adv Mpofu said the paper was peddling a false story in an attempt to gain relevance. “This is because a diligent newspaper would have asked itself why Mutashu is paying the hefty legal fees incurred by our client if there has been such a settlement.
“Indeed a well meaning newspaper would have been prepared to share with its readership its informants in order for it to support the credibility of its story. If Mutashu was paid, why would he keep the fact of such payment under the carpet having gone out all guns blazing in relentless attack of our client from the beginning?”
The adultery saga spilled into the High Court recently after Mutashu filed a $500,000 suit accusing the cleric of having an illicit affair with his wife Nomsa Ruvazhe.
Prophet Magaya denied the allegations before Mutashu decided to withdraw the case last week. The Herald
