Pretoria - Gold Leaf Tobacco Corporation is taking Crime Watch presenter Yusuf Abramjee to court this week.
The company claims he has embarked on a smear campaign against it and wants an urgent order to prevent him from making statements that it says are tarnishing its image.
Gold Leaf says Abramjee’s public statements include that it is an illicit brand, does not pay taxes and is “robbing” the country.
In terms of their court papers, this is pending the finalisation of a R50 million damages claim against Abramjee for alleged defamation.
Gold Leaf director Ebrahim Adamjee said Abramjee had embarked on a smear campaign against it under the guise of the #TakeBackTheTax campaign.
“The message that the respondent (Abramjee) wants to get across is that the applicant is robbing South Africa of billions in lost taxes. These allegations are denied by the applicant.”
One of the objections raised by the company is that Abramjee, among others, posted that “the biggest brand in South Africa, RG, is an illegal brand”.
Adamjee said Abramjee was a well-known figure who had many social media followers and his statements were thus extremely damaging to their reputation.
Adamjee added that all of the company’s brands were registered with Sars and everything was above board.
Earlier, in a letter which forms part of the court papers, Dario Milo, Abramjee’s lawyer, wrote to the applicant’s lawyer, stating that there was no basis for removing the offending posts.
Milo said the information contained in the media statement to which Golf Leaf objected had been in the public domain since November last year. He said Abramjee was within his rights to publish the information.
The matter was set down on the urgent roll yesterday, but it will now, by agreement, be heard on Friday.