BEIJING – YouTube has banned Uebert Angel, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ambassador-at-large, from its platform after he allegedly tried to remove Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia investigative documentary.
The four-part series reportedly exposed Angel as a key player in alleged gold and money laundering activities in Zimbabwe, with claims that Mnangagwa had close ties with gold smugglers and money launderers who claimed they paid the President regularly for protection.
According to NewsDay, data analysis group Team Pachedu stated that Angel had attempted to remove the content several times before being banned from YouTube for violating its terms of service.
“When you make a complaint, YouTube automatically notifies the other party that somebody is violating its copyright for IT (information technology) to get videos. So the other party is involved throughout the process of what’s going on,” they said.
Team Pachedu added that Angel was now attempting to attract followers on Facebook, using an account that was not previously in use.
“Right now he is using another channel called UebertAngelplus on Facebook which was not being used. They have managed to load over 100 videos in the past three days, but the main account has been banned, which was YouTube,” they said.
Angel has not commented on the matter, and efforts to reach him have been fruitless.
However, Team Pachedu also published a letter written by YouTube to Angel, explaining why they refused to remove the content from their platform.
“Hi Uebert Angel, We are concerned that your copyright notification may not be valid for some or all of the videos identified in your notification.
“Please keep in mind that in many countries, it is legal to use copyrighted works in specific ways without the owner’s authorisation, particularly for transformative purposes such as news reporting, parody, commentary, or review,” the letter stated.
Last month, Angel dismissed allegations made against him in the documentary, saying that his words and actions were never real but a classified national intelligence operation that was staged.
