Home

De Lille vows to sue Anthony Faul for defamation

Patricia de Lille
Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Democratic Alliance (DA) outgoing Cape Town mayor, Patricia de Lille says she has instructed her lawyers to sue businessman Anthony Faul for defamation of character.  This comes after the Hawks dismissed bribery charges against De Lille.

Faul had claimed in 2012 that De Lille had attempted to solicit a R5 million bribe from him. This was in exchange for her endorsement of his venture to provide fire extinguishers to informal settlements in Cape Town.

De Lille says the allegations are not true. Addressing the media on a variety of issues on Sunday, the Cape Town mayor says the decision to sue Faul is to ensure that she can clear her name.

“It’s a vicious attack on my good name and reputation. As such, they were defamatory in the extreme and I have instructed my lawyers to pursue a defamation case against him for R1 million,” she says.

De Lille says this was yet another smear campaign against her. “I’m convinced that these allegations were a grand plot to remove me, but regardless of this I committed transparently to work with the police and to work with the Hawks. They were a vicious attack on my good name and my reputation…”

De Lille says she will make further statements in coming weeks about legal action against others who she believes have stained her name.

The mayor has not decided yet if she will remain with the DA or not.

De Lille says she has taken an enormous amount of abuse and all the allegations which were spread far and wide by the DA has caused her great reputational harm.

“To date I have not been found guilty of anything that I have been accused of. I have always said that the truth will always survive and that I am not afraid to subject myself to any due process to properly test the allegations against me, open to the public and the media,” De Lille defended.

Early February this year, DA federal executive chairperson James Selfe confirmed that the party had approached the police with an affidavit they had received from Faul.

Author

MOST READ