South African President Jacob Zuma has sued a leading media group and others over a two-year-old political cartoon depicting him in a sexually suggestive scene with a figure representing "Lady Justice".
Mr Zuma is seeking four million rand (€437,000) for defamation from Avusa media and an additional one million rand from a former editor with the group's Sunday Times newspaper and the cartoonist, said Eric van der Berg, an attorney with the Sunday Times today.
"We were surprised that it [the lawsuit] came more than two years after the event," Van Der Berg told Reuters. "We will defend it vigorously."
The cartoon image depicting Mr Zuma's supporters holding down Lady Justice was from Jonathan Shapiro, known by his pen name Zapiro. Mr Zuma was shown standing over the woman with his flies unzipped.
Mr Shapiro today told Talk Radio 702: "I was saying something very strong about him because I felt, and still do feel, that he and his allies were abusing the justice system."
At the time the cartoon was published in 2008 Mr Zuma was facing corruption charges which could have blocked his path to the presidency.
A court in 2006 acquitted the president of raping an HIV-positive family friend in a case that garnered widespread public interest and condemnation from women's groups in a country with one of the highest incidents of sexual violence in the world.
Mr Zuma has called the cartoon degrading and vulgar and pledged to take legal action.
The lawsuit comes as Mr Zuma's ruling African National Congress plans new measures to monitor the media, which have been criticised by local media, global groups and some overseas governments as an attempt to muzzle the press.
Reuters