Mashatile’s Alex Mafia friends tried to punish News24, high court says, and penalises them instead

A High Court judge has ruled that attempts by two of Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s oldest friends, Bridgman Sithole and Mike Maile, to block Media24 from naming them as members of the “Alex Mafia” were an intimidatory abuse of court process.

This was why, Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg Judge Ingrid Opperman explained, she had ordered Sithole and Maile to pay Media24’s costs on a punitive scale – a mechanism that courts use to express their displeasure at the manner in which a case has been litigated.

“I am driven to conclude that this application is an abusive attempt by two politically-connected businessmen to gag a targeted newsroom from using a nickname – “Alex Mafia” – by which the [Sithole and Maile] are popularly known and called by the public, politicians, political commentators, other newsrooms, and themselves – and have been for at least 16 years,” the judge stated.