Amushelelo ordered to delete online remarks about police chief Shikongo

A Windhoek High Court judge has ordered social activist Michael Amushelelo to remove comments about Namibian Police inspector general Joseph Shikongo that he made on social media since the start of last week.

In terms of an interim interdict issued by judge Boas Usiku yesterday, Amushelelo has to remove comments that he made on Facebook on 31 March about a fatal car collision in which Shikongo was involved in December 2022.

Amushelelo must also remove comments on the same topic that followed on his Facebook post on Monday last week.

According to Usiku’s order, Amushelelo may also not make “any further statements, commentary, or insinuations concerning [Shikongo] that are defamatory or otherwise in relation to the road accident that occurred in December 2022,” or which are in breach of a settlement agreement in a previous case that was signed by Shikongo and Amushelelo in October last year.

Usiku’s order is in force until an application in which Shikongo is asking the High Court to declare Amushelelo to be in contempt of court has been concluded.

Amushelelo should pay Shikongo’s legal costs in his application for the interim interdict, Usiku ordered as well.

Amushelelo, who was not represented by a lawyer during the court proceedings before Usiku yesterday, at first told the judge he wanted to apply for state-funded legal aid.

After Usiku directed that the hearing of Shikongo’s urgent application for an interim interdict should proceed, Amushelelo said since the court was dealing with an application for an interim order, he would consent to the granting of that order.

However, he still intends to show to the court at a later stage that he is not guilty of contempt of court as alleged by Shikongo, Amushelelo added.

Shikongo is claiming that remarks which Amushelelo posted on Facebook on 31 March violate a court order issued in October last year. That was after Amushelelo and Shikongo agreed to settle a defamation case in which Shikongo sued Amushelelo for N$1 million in connection with previous remarks he had made about a fatal road collision in which Shikongo was involved in northern Namibia in December 2022.

In a settlement agreement that was made an order of the High Court, it was recorded that Amushelelo tendered an apology to Shikongo and that he provided “a formal and binding undertaking” to refrain from making or publishing any further statements similar to the ones about which Shikongo instituted a defamation claim against him.

In the remarks that Amushelelo posted on his Facebook page at the start of last week, he alleged that Shikongo has not been held accountable for his actions in the fatal collision in which he was involved, and said it should be demanded that Shikongo be arrested in connection with the accident, which claimed the lives of three people.

Shikongo is alleging that Amushelelo’s remarks “imply that I committed culpable homicide” and “suggest that I received preferential treatment and was not held accountable for my actions”.

This, Shikongo claims, is despite Amushelelo being informed that the police docket on an investigation of the fatal accident has been sent to the Office of the Prosecutor General for a decision to be made on whether he will be prosecuted in connection with the incident.

Acting judge Doris Hans-Kaumbi, who initially was set to hear Shikongo’s urgent application against Amushelelo, convicted Amushelelo of contempt of court on Monday evening, after he had referred to judges as “puppets” and said they thought of themselves as “little gods”.

Amushelelo was sentenced to pay a fine of N$5 000 or serve a prison term of six months, as well as a fully suspended prison term of six months, on Wednesday.

Lawyer Nambili Mhata is representing Shikongo.