The charity that Prince Harry co-founded two decades ago to help people with H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa has sued him for libel in London’s High Court, according to court records and a statement from the charity.
Sentebale, the charity, was founded in 2006 in honor of Harry’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and raised money to help people affected by the H.I.V. pandemic in Lesotho, a tiny nation in southern Africa. Harry, who holds the title Duke of Sussex, resigned as patron from the charity last year after a bitter clash between its board of trustees and the board’s chair.
Records at the High Court in London indicate that Sentebale filed a defamation lawsuit against the duke and another defendant on March 23, alleging libel and slander. More detailed records about the case are not available to the public.
In a statement posted to the Sentebale website, the group’s executive director and board of trustees said they were seeking “the court’s intervention, protection, and restitution following a coordinated adverse media campaign” that they said had caused “reputational harm to the charity, its leadership, and its strategic partners.”
The statement adds that the defendants in the case are Harry and Mark Dyer, a former trustee at Sentebale and a longtime friend of the prince. The statement accuses them of being “the architects of that adverse media campaign, which has had significant viral impact and triggered an onslaught of cyberbullying directed at the charity and its leadership.”
A spokesman for Prince Harry did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on the filing of the lawsuit.
Last year, the board of trustees at the London-based charity issued a joint statement saying they had lost “trust and confidence” in Sophie Chandauka, the board’s chair, and she should resign from her position. They later resigned, saying that Ms. Chandauka had filed a lawsuit in Britain “to block us from voting her out.”
Ms. Chandauka said in a statement at the time that she had acted to expose what she described as “issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir,” a term referring to pointed sexism toward Black women, “and the coverup that ensued.”
The charity later said it had restructured its board.
When he resigned last year, Harry and his co-founder, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, who also resigned, said in a statement that it was “devastating that the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation.”
Michael D. Shear is the chief U.K. correspondent for The New York Times, covering British politics and culture and diplomacy around the world.
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