Digital strategist Dennis Itumbi has responded to Interior CS Dr Fred Matiangi who had threatened to take legal action against Itumbi over tweets the CS termed as defamatory.
In a letter dated Sunday, August 15, Itumbi stated that his tweets claiming the CS fraudulently obtained land belong to Ruaraka Primary School are not defamatory.
“I further deny that the said tweets were defamatory or in any way malicious, but without prejudice would like to respond for the purpose of record,” the letter by Itumbi read in part.
On Wednesday, August 11, Matiang’i through Nyamodi and Company Advocates instructed Itumbi to immediately retract the tweets he published on his social media handle.
In his letter, the CS threatened to institute legal proceedings against Itumbi if he does not pull down the tweets.
“Consequently, we are instructed to demand as we hereby do, your immediate and unreserved retraction of all tweets referring to our client as a thief, an unconditional apology to our client, and that you immediately expunge the defamatory statements from your Twitter account. Our client further demands an unconditional apology for the defamatory statements published via your verified Twitter account in a manner approved by our client,” the letter by Matiang’i read in part.
However, in his response to Matiang’i, Itumbi claimed he had conducted sufficient investigations into the matter before he published the tweets.
“As a civic-minded and engaged citizen , as a taxpayer, and, most critically, as an investigative journalist, I have expended time and resources to get to the bottom of the matter in order to enlighten the public on this grand heist, which was undertaken with your grand blessings,” the letter by Itumbi read in part.
“Ruaraka Land Scandal is of great public interest and my comments on it, including those which make reference to you, are actuated solely by my knowledge of facts in the public domain, a well-founded outrage as a citizen as well as my sense of duty as a journalist,” Itumbi said.
