DUSHANBE, March 28, 2013, Asia-Plus  -- A judge at Dushanbe’s economic court has offered Tojiron Company and Ms. Fayziniso Vohidova, a lawyer from Sughd province, to come to an amicable agreement.

“Inoyat Inoyatov, who is representing Tojiron Company in the trial, however, refused the amicable agreement,” Ms. Vohidova told Asia-Plus in an interview on March 27 following the preliminary hearing over the case.  “Inoyatov claims that in this case, the matter is of deliberate spreading of false information.”

The next hearing over this case will take place on April 5.

We will recall that Tojiron Company filed a libel lawsuit against Imrouz News (New Today) and Ms. Fayziniso Vohidova in late February, asking for 1.00 somoni from the newspaper and 50,000 somoni from Ms. Fayziniso Vohidova as compensation of moral damage that was allegedly caused by an article published by the newspaper.

The lawsuit stems from an article “Murdafurushi dar Shirkati Tojiron” that was published in the newspaper on January 17.  The article was about a fatal traffic accident, involving one of Tojiron’s gasoline tankers, which took place on the Dushanbe-Khujand highway.

“We consider that publication of unchecked facts is a great mistake of the newspaper.  Each journalist must double check the facts and find out opinions of both sides,” said representative of Tojiron.  “In this case, Imrouz News has not checked the facts about the accident, and thereby, it has undermined image of Tojiron among the population.”

Meanwhile, editorial staff of Imrouz News noted that they published a disclaimer 15 days after the article was published.