•Itumbi insists that he has not defamed Matiang'i because his remarks are from information well known to the public.
•Through his lawyers, Matiang'i on Wednesday demanded that Itumbi retract all tweets on his page referring to him as a thief.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Blogger Dennis Itumbi has responded to Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i after he threatened to sue him for defamation.
Itumbi said, "I deny that the said tweets were defamatory or in any way malicious."
"The three tweets under reference are borne out of information and circumstances that are well known in the public domain and are in no way defamatory and malicious," he said.
Itumbi stated that the CS is a public officer who holds a high office and is incapable of hiding under the defamation law whenever Kenyans exercise their constitutional rights of opinion and expression on his suitability.
He noted someone in his position is constitutionally required to be transparent and accountable to Kenyans.
Itumbi stood by his words further accusing the CS of theft, during his tenure in the Education ministry.
"In totality therefore, the payment of Sh1,500,000,000/=at your behest was outright theft under your supervision and leadership. You sold sand to the ocean for a pound of flesh," his response reads.
Through his lawyers, Matiang'i on Wednesday demanded that Itumbi retract all tweets on his page referring to him as a thief.
The demand letter also said it expected him to issue an unconditional apology to Matiang'i and immediately expunge the defamatory statements from his account.
"Our client further demands an unconditional apology for the defamatory statements published via your verified Twitter account in a manner to be approved by our client," Nyamodi and advocates said.
Matiang'i said on diverse dates between July 9, 2021 and August 9, 2021, Itumbi published a series of highly defamatory and malicious allegations.
"This defamatory statement has resulted in 103 retweets, 5 quote tweets and 732 likes as at 11th August, 2021," the lawyers said.
Matiang'i said the defamatory captions, taken in their ordinary meaning by right thinking members of the society, are falsely understood to mean that the CS has been found guilty of corruption.
The lawyers said the use of the words are a deliberate misrepresentation of facts published with the sole intention of injuring the CS's reputation.
In November last year, the Anti-corruption court magistrate Douglas Ogoti dismissed an application by Itumbi, in which he sought to be allowed to prosecute Interior CS Matiang'i over the Ruaraka land case.
Itumbi accused Matiang'i, who was at the time the Education CS, of willful failure to comply with the law on management of public funds during the compulsory acquisition of the Ruaraka land on which two schools sit.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A