The Duke of Sussex is being sued by Sentebale in the latest twist in the bitter fallout over the African charity he co-founded.

The charity has lodged papers in London’s high court over defamation claims naming Prince Harry and the former Sentebale trustee Mark Dyer as defendants.

The prince had been engaged in a public war of words with the charity’s chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, after his resignation as a patron last year.

Sentebale works with children and young people in southern Africa. Harry and the co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho stepped down in March 2025, and trustees later quit over a dispute with Chandauka, a lawyer appointed in 2023.

Sentebale said it had begun legal proceedings after “a coordinated adverse media campaign conducted since 25 March 2025 that has caused operational disruption and reputational harm to the charity, its leadership and its strategic partners”.

It added: “The proceedings have been brought against Prince Harry and Mark Dyer, identified through evidence as 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.

“Sentebale has experienced the adverse media campaign as false narratives circulated through the media about the charity and its leadership, attempts to undermine its relationships with staff, existing and prospective partners, and the forced diversion of leadership time and resources into managing a reputational crisis not of the charity’s making.

“The charity should not continue to use its resources to manage and address the damage this adverse media campaign has caused to its operations and partnerships. This must stop. The board and executive director have taken this legal action to secure that protection. The costs of doing so are met entirely by external funding and no charitable funds have been used.”

The claim was filed on 24 March, according to HM Courts and Tribunals Service, though further details were not available.

A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex and Mark Dyer said: “As Sentebale’s co-founder and a founding trustee, they categorically reject these offensive and damaging claims.

“It is extraordinary that charitable funds are now being used to pursue legal action against the very people who built and supported the organisation for nearly two decades, rather than being directed to the communities the charity was created to serve.”

In August 2025, the Charity Commission criticised Harry for allowing a row with the chair to “play out publicly”, while clearing him of racism.

After his resignation was made public, Chandauka said she had been targeted by people who “play the victim card”. She described the dispute as a “story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir [discrimination against black women] – and the cover-up that ensued”.

In its compliance case ruling, the regulator criticised all those involved in the dispute for “allowing it to play out publicly”. It said the then trustees’ failure to resolve disagreements internally had “severely impacted the charity’s reputation and risked undermining public trust in charities more generally”.

The commission found that a serious dispute between Chandauka and Harry followed the formulation of a new fundraising strategy in the US.

In response at the time, a spokesperson for Harry – who was not a trustee and established the charity in memory of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales – criticised the commission, saying its report had fallen “troublingly short”.

They said: “Unsurprisingly, the commission makes no findings of wrongdoing in relation to Sentebale’s co-founder and former patron, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.

“They also found no evidence of widespread bullying, harassment or misogyny and misogynoir at the charity, as falsely claimed by the current chair.

“Despite all that, their report falls troublingly short in many regards, primarily the fact that the consequences of the current chair’s actions will not be borne by her – but by the children who rely on Sentebale’s support.

“Sentebale has been a deeply personal and transformative mission for Prince Harry, established to serve some of the most vulnerable children in Lesotho and Botswana.”