11 Mar 2011

Legal action follows last week's Vanuatu Daily Post assault

4:04 pm on 11 March 2011

A Vanuatu newspaper publisher, Mark Neil-Jones, has made a formal complaint to police over last week's assault by a government minister, Harry Iauko, and his supporters.

Mr Neil Jones has also threatened to sue Mr Iauko who in turn says he will start legal proceeding against the Daily Post newspaper for defamation.

Mr Iauko says the Daily Post has run stories that were written by Transparency International Vanuatu about him but no one has contacted him for his side of the stories.

He is accusing the Daily Post of violating the journalists' code of ethics on balanced reporting.

Mr Iauko says he tried several times, unsuccessfully, to get the paper to run his side of the story.