A court has ordered Eswatini’s largest newspaper to stop publishing a series of articles on alleged confessions in which two terror suspects have implicated some of the country’s leaders in a spate of murders and arson attacks.The high court in Mbabane on Wednesday issued a temporary interdict stopping the Times of Eswatini from publishing articles based on the confessions of Sibusiso Nxumalo and Lucky Mnisi about the spate of attacks, killings, and burning of property in Africa’s last absolute monarchy. 

According to the newspaper, Nxumalo and Mnisi were arrested on terrorism charges last year and have allegedly confessed to the spate of attacks and have implicated various leaders.

The newspaper has since the beginning of the week carried sensational accounts from the confessions, giving intimate details of the alleged plotting and execution of various attacks around the country.

Quoting the confessions by the two, the newspaper said the attacks were targeted at members of the security forces, traditional authorities and state-linked people in retaliation to the state security apparatus’ killing of civilians during anti-government protests since June 2021.

The interdict follows an application by police chief William Dlamini for an interim order stopping the Times from continuing to publish articles based on the contents of the police docket.

In his court papers, Dlamini argued that the publishing of the contents of the docket was “jeopardising the ongoing police investigation.”