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Pretoria - Former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils and MKMVA chairperson and Deputy Defence Minister Kebby Maphatsoe have reached a settlement in Kasrils's defamation case against him.
The two parties agreed that Maphatsoe and the MKMVA would apologise to Kasrils, and pay him R500 000.
"The matter has become settled after discussions with both parties. By agreement between the parties, the chairperson of MKMVA made allegations that are false and offensive," Kasrils's lawyer Dali Mpofu told the court.
"He retracts the statements and apologises to the plaintiff. The defendants shall pay a total of R500 000 to the plaintiff."
Kasrils was suing Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association head Maphatsoe for R1m for defamation. Central to the case is President Jacob Zuma's 2006 rape trial.
At the time that the charges were laid against Zuma, Maphatsoe and other ANC officials maintained that Zuma was the victim of a "honey trap" - and that the woman had been sent to seduce Zuma.
Kasrils handpicked Khwezi - Maphatsoe
Zuma was acquitted. He maintained afterwards that he was the victim of a plot.
In 2014, before the national elections, Kasrils and former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge spearheaded a campaign called "Sidikiwe! Vukani Vote No!" in which they urged South Africans to vote for a minority party, or spoil their ballots.
Maphatsoe spoke out against the campaign and reportedly said the plot against Zuma had come from the intelligence ministry. He said Kasrils, who was intelligence minister at that time, had "handpicked the woman who alleged Zuma had raped her".
He reportedly claimed that Kasrils had "sold out to foreign agencies" and was hostile to Umkhonto we Sizwe operatives who had been dismissed from service.
The settlement will see R200 000 being paid within 30 days while the rest of the R300 000 would be paid in instalments of R25 000 over 12 months. They would also pay the costs of Kasrils's team.
According to the settlement, Maphatsoe and the MKMVA admitted that Maphatsoe's statements were "false, offensive and unacceptable".
"The apology is also hereby extended to all women of South Africa," the settlement reads.
