Al-Qalam 
A Durban comedian and university lecturer, Mohammed Yacoob Vawda, is suing the media giant for mistakenly identifying him as the person behind posts published on Ghost X (Twitter), writes Nabeelah Shaikh.
Durban comedian and university lecturer Mohammed Yacoob Vawda is suing Independent Media for R1.2 million for defaming him. Vawda was allegedly falsely accused of being behind the Ghost X (Twitter) account @goolammv, which has been exposing corrupt politicians on the platform for about six years now.
Independent Media called a press briefing where they apparently “unmasked” Vawda as being @goolammv.
Vawda, shocked by the allegations, immediately took to TikTok to respond to the allegations against him last week.
“I don’t even use Twitter. I don’t get involved in any type of politics at all. My family is getting threats and this is ridiculous. I don’t even know anything about politics, I only know the heads of political parties and nothing else,” said Vawda. He also then immediately issued a letter of demand to Independent Media to retract their statements and issue an apology on all platforms. Two days later, Independent Media did a U-turn and announced that they made a mistake. They released a video message on X saying there was a mistake in the investigation.
“Initially, our investigations identified two individuals linked to the @goolammv X account, both named Mohammed Vawda. However, during the press conference, a technical error occurred in that the wrong profile was shared with our content teams and the public,” said IOL CEO Viasen Soobramoney.
In the video, Soobramoney said Independent Media “unreservedly apologises to Mohamed Yacoob Vawda, his family and friends, fellow reporters, and the South African public.” By then, the damage was already done.
Vawda did not accept their apology and said: “This was not good enough at all, and I have now delivered a second Letter of Demand to Independent Media. I was really hoping that a well-established, prestigious media house like Independent Media would act in good faith, but it appears that I was wrong,” said Vawda.
Part of the papers read: “You have condemned an innocent man. Your conduct amounts to a blatant, reckless, and disgraceful act of disinformation and character assassination.”
Vawda’s Lawyer, Rupert Candy, said Vawda had suffered harm in the form of all the publications on social media.
“Vawda’s employment address was also being shared. Our client has thus also suffered severe reputational and emotional harm as a result of the false and defamatory publications. Most concerningly, is that our client, and his family, have received multiple death threats,” said Candy.
He said a reasonable reader of ordinary intelligence would understand the published statements against Vawda to mean that he associates himself with racists and that he is in cahoots with political parties to spread disinformation.
“These statements lower our client in the estimation of right-thinking persons generally and are therefore defamatory,” said Candy.
Candy said they are now suing Independent Media because they believe an apology is just not enough and that Vawda has already suffered reputational damage.
Vawda issued a summons on Friday, which included details of all the online harassment he has received since he was falsely accused.
These comments include Vawda being labelled a ‘racist satan’, threats that people will ‘deal with him’, and he was even labelled a ‘f***kin* Muslim terrorist’.
The summons also states that on 15 July, a contract killing was being arranged by an unknown person offering a R250 000 reward to anyone who could kill Vawda.
The summons states that Vawda has suffered extensive emotional and psychological trauma and had to move himself and his family to a secure location.
In the summons, Vawda is requesting an unconditional retraction and apology to be published by Independent Media, Iqbal Survé, and its seven editors on their personal accounts.
He is claiming damages to the tune of R1.2 million and is also claiming costs on his application.
Meanwhile, Independent Media has since outed who they now say is the person responsible for the @goolammv account. They claim he is a 49-year-old man, originally from Winterton, now living in Morningside.
