My Ref: iCloud/CHINYOKAONTUESDAY/CHRONICLES
Your Ref: SM/BM/dc
11 March 2024
Mr Sternford Moyo
Scanlen & Holderness
13th Floor CABS Centre
74 Jason Moyo Ave,
ALLEGATIONS AGAINST AUGUR INVESTMENTS OU AND KENNETH RAYDON SHARPE – INTERDICT AND RETRACTION
I refer to your letter of the same reference dated 8 March 2024 delivered without seal at my place of work at 1422Hours on the same date after I had left Chambers and only seen by me only on the following day.
In keeping with the un-private nature of your letter, and moreover because it was important that those that have read my article see your client’s side of the story as you explained it in the letter, please note that I have posted your reply to the same platforms where my articles (hereafter called “The Chronicles”) have been published.
I make the observation that the letter was without seal in order to highlight the fact that by sending your letter to a public business address, namely the HARARE LAW CHAMBERS, unsealed, you made a tacit acknowledgement that the contents of said letter were not private. Rather, you were well aware and did intend that the same be made public, including the various defamatory allegations you make in that letter against me including:
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- the false allegation that I have claimed that allegations in The Chronicles are fact not opinion;
- the unfounded and defamatory claim that The Chronicles display malicious intent on my part;
- the claim that I am a liar who makes “bizarre, false, (or patently false), reckless and highly defamatory” allegations;
- the allegation that I have conducted myself in an unethical fashion unbefitting a legal practitioner and should be investigated further (presumably by the Law Society of Zimbabwe, which point I will address further below); and
- that I should apologise for what I have done!
Before replying to the letter in the detail that is meet, I should point out that besides reading your letter on the weekend, I also had a visit from certain gentlemen claiming to be bearing a friendly warning to leave Ken Sharpe alone. They referenced that he was their long standing employer, and that I was too small to be trying to bother “Mr. Ken Sharpe” when others have tried and failed. They, like you, used the phrase “you represent Katsimberis” who has, according to them tried to bring “Mr. Ken Sharpe” down without success.
In what can only be a threat to my life, these gentlemen pointed out that I was “totally exposed” because Mr. Ken Sharpe knows that no-one stands with me, and no-one would care if anything happens to me because “who really is on your side.” Reference was made to the former Minister of Finance, Mr. Tendai Laxton Biti, and that “at least he has the Americans to support him and ask questions should anything happen to him”. Several times in the largely onside conversation names of politicians and rich businessmen were mentioned as being friends with “Mr. Ken Sharpe” in a way that clearly looked like name dropping and deflecting. While it is not possible to conclude, from these gentlemen’s words and conduct, that they were sent by your clients, it is also hard to think of anyone that benefits from conduct so clearly calculated and targeted at scaring me off of The Chronicles than your clients. Knowing that your client Mr. Ken Sharpe is a devout Christian, I do hope that you remind him of this scripture that has been brought to my attention and should be the rock on which he might rest his future actions in this matter: Proverbs 28:1 “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”
I will now address the “substance” of your letter under reference.
First, I did not publish an article called “The Chronicles of Ken Sharpe, builder of Dubai in Zimbabwe” on 24 February 2024. Judging from what you claim is contained in that article, I think you are referring to my article titled “The Chronicles of Ken Sharpe, Builder of Dubai in Zimbabwe, Chapter 1”, published on 20 February 2024 and which can be accessed at https://tinochinyoka.com/ (other articles are also available there, some talking about Mr. Ken Sharpe and others not, most on corruption, not his as none says he is corrupt).[1] That article makes clear that any facts claimed therein are not mine but what is contained in publicly available documents, and no reader looking at The Chronicles would come to the view that the allegations of impropriety against your clients have been manufactured by Tinomudaishe Chinyoka. Of course, I say this not oblivious to the Shona adage that “kuvhunduka chati kwata hunge une katurikwa” – a statement that I am sure your client Mr. Ken Sharpe as a Zimbabwean born and raised in Mashonaland will understand well. (I hasten to say that the gentlemen that I referenced before also pointed out this fact to me, and that Mr. Ken Sharpe was such “a baddie” that he was once expelled from Peterhouse Boys – I do not claim that this statement is true, only that it was mentioned to me.)
So, I immediately must suppose that you are in fact not referring to The Chronicles as authored by me, but perhaps a copy edited and repackaged by a news aggregator in the public interest. The clue might be in who you have copied the letter to as well. The lawyer in you will no doubt realise at this moment that even if the sending an unsealed copy to me is excusable, by publishing your letter to the other party mentioned at the bottom, making serious defamatory statements against me as mentioned above, you have passed the hurdle of publication at which liability for damages to me attaches. Whether or not I will do anything about said defamation, at this point, I will not speak. (Lest I be accused of plagiarism, that last phrase is quoted from the musician and poet, Albert Nyathi.)
I am however very surprised that you bring up the matter of Mr. Georgios Katsimberis, who you claim is my client.
First, I am surprised because Mr. Georgios Katsimberis is not my client. I am of Counsel, I have no clients. And I know you are not confused by the distinction.
I am however currently briefed in a matter in which that individual is facing criminal charges brought by a company called Pokugara Properties (Private) Limited, which company is represented in those proceedings variously by a Mr. Simbarashe Kadye and a Mr. Michael John Van Blerk. Not by Mr. Ken Sharpe. That company (or its representatives in the case) is neither Augur Investments OU nor is it Mr. Ken Sharpe. Again, I know you are not confused by the distinction.
Second, I am surprised because you make no sense. By suggesting that in these fact situations I cannot, as an Advocate briefed in a matter involving a company that your client might be associated with, (which association has never been shown in any documents that I have seen) you are effectively saying lawyers can never talk to the press, are you not? You are saying, for example, that a lawyer is not allowed to comment about anything to do with government corruption or the rule of law because they might be representing a civil servant (who by definition works for government) in an unrelated court matter? Assuming that to be true, what then are we to make of the fact that on 13 March 2001, you, Mr Sternford Moyo, are reported by The Humanitarian and IRN News as having made the following comments to the press:
Black lawyers in Zimbabwe said on Monday that they would oppose any form of political patronage from the ruling ZANU-PF party following its recommendations that government should withdraw business from white-owned law firms. ‘The Daily News’ reported on Tuesday that Sternford Moyo, president of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, said that while efforts to empower black lawyers were honourable, the process should not be used as a way of buying political support using public assets. “Once that happens,” Moyo said, “it becomes a form of corruption. The goal of indigenisation is a noble one. But it can very easily be turned into a strong network of political patronage and it is unacceptable for politicians to use public assets to buy political support.”[2]
Was this not a matter in which your firm and yourself had an interest? Have you, as a black senior partner, not gone on to benefit from this and done government work since March 2001 and therefore a beneficiary of the same process of indigenisation? Are there no public entities that are your clients now, a fact that might be attributed to your campaign as quoted in the newspaper?
Because it looks to me, Mr. Sternford Moyo, that you are suggesting that a lawyer cannot comment on the practices of any individual who works for a company that might be involved in some litigation involving that lawyer. How would this work, practically? Does this apply to only current litigation? Prospective? Historical? Unless if you are saying of course that Pokugara Properties (Private) Limited, the complainant in Mr. Georgios Katsimberis’s case, is really just a facade and that it was in fact Mr. Ken Sharpe that destroyed Mr. Georgios Katsimberis house under the false claim that it had been built using a fake building plan.
Is that what you mean? Did Mr. Ken Sharpe destroy George’s house, Mr. Moyo?
There is yet another reason why your reference to Mr. Georgios Katsimberis is gratuitous and meant to upgrade a flimsy defamation claim into an ethical violation against my person. It is this, the very fact that it is you, not Messrs Gill Godlonton & Gerrans or Messrs Madzima Chidyausiku Museta, that is contacting me. Because those are the lawyers representing the parties against Mr. Georgios Katsimberis in that matter or the matters where I was once briefed, not you. In fact, your firm renounced agency in some of those. The fact that you still represent Augur Investments OU and Mr. Kenneth Sharpe in this demand confirms that this matter is wholly unrelated to the ones where I am/was briefed, does it not?
In any event, as any reader of The Chronicles would attest, my writings are about extolling the virtues of Mr. Ken Sharpe, in my view a true Zimbabwean hero who is going to build a Dubai in Zimbabwe. When he dies, should my death not be occasioned first, I will be one of those petitioning that he be interred at the National Heroes Acre like other leading business luminaries have. My writings have nothing to do with the one matter in which I am briefed to appear for Mr. Georgios Katsimberis because, with respect, that has nothing to do with Airport Road or how Augur Investments OU made its money and got paid what land and by whom, or putting 5 billion bricks into the ground by 2030, or is that 2050? Mr. Georgios Katsimberis’s case has nothing to do with the land at Warren Hills Gold Club or the joint venture agreement with City of Harare that birthed Sunshine Developments (Private) Limited. Nothing to do with everything I have written about. I am so well in touch with my ethical responsibilities that I would not need a reminder on the same.
In fact, it is precisely because I am fully in touch with my ethical obligations that I have studiously avoided including in The Chronicles the clearly compromised and corrupt manner in which the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) has conducted itself in that case you now mention. If you checked with the lawyers involved on behalf of Pokugara Properties (Private) Limited, you will learn that the NPA is claiming in one court that Mr. Georgios Katsimberis fraudulently built a house without building plans, which house Pokugara Properties’s agents (not Augur’s or Mr. Ken Sharpe’s) demolished; then through SACU running to the next court to lackadaisically charge (before inexplicably tanking the cases) those same Pokugara Properties agents with Malicious Damage to Property (MDP) for demolishing the same house because, according to the NPA, it was built on perfectly legitimate plans AND producing the very same perfectly valid plan as evidence in court!
(Yes, please read that again, I have not made a mistake, it is that stupid!)
If it was not for my fealty to my professional ethics, my readers would already have read about the Special Anti Corruption Unit’s desperate, apoplectic and ultimately futile complaint to the PG about how this was corrupt and detrimental to the fight against corruption. My readers would have read that that SACU complaint drove the prosecutor Michael Reza to falsely and inexplicably claim, in court, that the NPA had nothing to do with SACU and that in fact it is Mr. Georgios Katsimberis that controls SACU – please refer to the judgement of the High Court in Katsimberis v The Prosecutor General & Others 2022 ZWHHC 611.[3] Or how the same Mr. Michael Reza filed pleadings in Court saying he was going to ensure that crucial witnesses were not called to testify in the MDP cases to ensure that the defendants (Pokugara Properties and others) were acquitted, or another pleading saying “listen to me, George Katsimberis, you are not the President of Zimbabwe and therefore prosecutable” while he and the NPA were at the same time filing papers in court suggesting that Ken Sharpe was not prosecutable for an unrelated criminal complaint. Irony.
My readers would also have read by now how Ms. Tatina Aleshina and Pokugara Properties are mentioned dozens of times in court in that case and yet, when you read the court record, there is hardly any mention of them. How days of damaging testimony against Pokugara Properties, Ms. Tatiana Aleshina and Mr. Michael Reza has disappeared from the court transcript, with eight months of hearings condensed to some 42 pages, which is normally not long enough for one day’s hearing. Now, I am certain that your clients Augur Investments OU and Mr. Kenneth Sharpe are completely innocent of any of this, since it is Ms. Tatiana Aleshina that Mr. Michael Reza claims has a personal interest in the outcome of this case, but do you honestly think that armed with that rich material I would be talking about some airport road or golf course on my blog if not for my ethical obligations? Surely my readers would have found those stories more interesting, no?
So, no. There are no ethical issues raised by my writings, and your investigations will show that. And I hope those investigations will also show the very biased and clearly paid for (in my opinion) media coverage that that case has received, which has prompted me to sue certain publications for maligning my name.
You will note that I speak of the inevitability of such an investigation. This is deliberate. This is because once I have noted the threat to cause an investigation of my licensure as a lawyer through the Law Society, I see it as inevitable because of the outsize nature of the influence that you, Mr. Sternford Moyo, has over the Law Society. You are also their lawyer. You are saying that you think that your client must investigate me. Is there a chance that your client will not take your instructions?
So, such an investigate will happen, but that should never lead you or anyone to conclude that that speaks to it being right or warranted but just an extension of how certain individuals in our society are able to use perfectly legitimate and supposedly institutions to silence views and thoughts that differ with their interests, whether those interests be acquisitive, lawful, political social or economic.
The truth no longer carries a premium in this country. One needs not look farther than this case to marvel that it was necessary for your clients to the use of a cudgel to pen a mere letter of demand, and imbue it with threats of apocalyptic damnation.
You bizarrely claim that I have not behaved like a journalist by not giving your clients a right of reply. Of course you then seek to also require me to act like a legal practitioner, which tends to confuse one as to what exactly you say I am. Am I a journalist or a lawyer? At least make up your mind. Please.
However, in the interests of the readers of my blog, I am quite happy to send you, every Monday, as I hereby do, notification of what is in the upcoming edition of The Chronicles so that your client might give me their rebuttal or comment. In the interests of space, such a rebuttal/comment needs to be no more than two short paragraphs: your client is free to post longer replies on its own platforms and link to my blog. This right of reply is not a right of veto: what I have already drafted and stored offshore, will be published, with your client’s comments. Of course if those gentlemen that came to see me have their way, there will be no-one to solicit and publish your clients’ view, but the articles will still be published, my lawyers (abroad, not governed by your client) will see to that. But, back to the right of reply: the 12 March edition of The Chronicles will be largely a reproduction of an article published by “The Source” on 11 June 2016 titled “A road paved with greed and corruption: The story of Harare Airport Road” – found at https://www.thezimbabwenewslive.com/20566/ . My own addition to that article would be to point out that that story was published, but not asserting that it was true or not. Your client can confirm if they also got an interdict against the story or sued for defamation damages. And, your other client the Law Society will be happy to know that this was published while Mr. Georgios Katsimberis and your clients were business partners.
Lastly, having been told by you and those gentlemen that visited me to stop speaking, it would be wrong, particularly given the nature of The Chronicles, for me to end this letter without making reference to the Bible; and I think that this scripture will be good for you to refer to your client. Not because I am saying the words myself, which I am not, but just as a fellow adherent of the Judaeo-Christian tradition sharing scriptures. Just have him change the word “prophet” to “journalist” while reading:
Amos 7 (NIV)
Amos and Amaziah
10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. 11 For this is what Amos is saying:
“‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
and Israel will surely go into exile,
away from their native land.’”
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. 13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”
14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say,
“‘Do not prophesy against Israel,
and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’
17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:
“‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.
Your land will be measured and divided up,
and you yourself will die in a pagan[c] country.
And Israel will surely go into exile,
away from their native land.’”
Yours faithfully
Tinomudaishe Chinyoka
- The Chronicles are written in the style of the Hebrew Scriptures, in particular that of what the Christians call “The Old Testament”. ↑
- https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/report/19137/zimbabwe-lawyers-reject-zanu-pf-patronage ↑
- Available at https://www.jsc.org.zw/upload/Judgements/High%20Court/Harare/2021/HH%20611-22.pdf ↑
