Gaddafi sues Uganda paper for $1bn

KAMPALA, Monday

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is suing a Kampala tabloid after it alleged he is having an affair with a Queen Mother of a Ugandan kingdom.

Gaddafi’s lawyers have filed a suit totalling one billion dollars against the editors of The Red Pepper over the paper’s reports that he is in love with Tooro Kingdom’s Queen Mother Best Kemigisha, editor Ben Byaraba said.

“Gaddafi has sued us for one billion dollars,” Mr Byaraba said by telephone.

“We stand by the story and we are waiting for Gaddafi to stand in court to accuse us of writing that he is engaged in the sex scandal.”

Tooro, in the west of the country, is one of numerous Ugandan kingdoms revived by President Yoweri Museveni over 15 years ago after their abolition in the 1960s.

A widow in her early 40s, Kemigisha is the mother of the world’s youngest monarch, the 16-year old king Oyo Nyimba Iguru.

Gaddafi’s lawyers said that articles “cumulatively construed in their ordinary meaning and context” that Colonel Gaddafi was having an adulterous relationship with Kemigisha.

The Libyan leader, who was recently appointed chairman of the African Union, has frequently been seen with Queen Kemigisha, visiting the Tooro royal family whenever he comes to Uganda. (Reuters)