Oprah Winfrey told to defend defamation case

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey has been told by a US judge that she must defend a defamation case filed against her by the former headmistress of her girls' school in South Africa.

Judge Eduardo Robreno refused to dismiss the legal action on March 15, saying Nomvuho Mzamane had enough evidence to pursue her claim that Winfrey, 56, allegedly made remarks about her following sex abuse complaints at the school, reports the BBC.

The abuse emerged in 2007, when one girl complained she had been fondled while others reported being sworn at, grabbed by the neck, beaten or thrown against a wall.

A former matron at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, which was opened in Johannesburg in 2007 at a cost of 40 million dollars, was later charged with abusing six students.

Mzamane claims that Winfrey made statements to the press and parents at the time, suggesting she was not trustworthy.

Winfrey's lawyers argued that the remarks reflected her opinions, but the judge ruled they were potentially defamatory as they ascribed "conduct which would render her [Mzamane] unfit for her profession as an educator".

The trial is now set for March 29 in Philadelphia.

Winfrey pledged to build the academy after a meeting with former South African president Nelson Mandela in 2002, and personally interviewed many of the South African girls from low-income families who applied for the initial 150 places at the school.