Investigative media firm, Tiger Eye PI has described as a travesty of justice the ruling of an Accra High Court dismissing its CEO, Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ defamatory suit against Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong.
In a press statement dated March 15, 2023, the media firm said the presiding judge, Justice Baah J. ignored all facts which established that Mr. Agyapong defamed Mr. Anas but used the MP’s documentary, which it argued contains no evidence of the allegations levelled against its CEO, to justify the legislator’s defamatory act.
It stated, “We find the decision of the court an unfortunate travesty of justice and very inimical to the administration of justice and fairness”.
Tiger Eye PI argued that “If for nothing at all, Mr. Agyapong made an allegation of murder against Mr. Anas. There is absolutely nothing contained in the said documentary which alludes to the commission of murder or an allegation of the commission of murder by Mr. Anas. Thus, that documentary cannot provide any justification for an allegation of murder in the wildest imagination. Yet the judge conveniently ignored this obvious fact and the fact that Mr. Anas is not a suspect for murder and is not under investigation for murder”.
It alleged that Justice Baah J. was assigned to handle the case “at the express instance of Kennedy Agyapong” and added that “Throughout the trial, Mr. Agyapong displayed absolute disdain and disrespect of the Court and the lawyers of Anas but all attempts to cite him for contempt hit a dead end”.
The investigative journalist, in 2018, dragged Mr. Agyapong to court over allegations he levelled against him (Mr. Anas) following the premiere of his ‘Number 12’ documentary, which exposed corruption in football administration in Ghana and other African countries.
Anas Aremeyaw Anas argued, in his statement of claim, that the Assin Central MP made claims on media platforms that defamed him and prayed the court to order the MP to pay him an amount of 25 million cedis as compensation for damages caused him as result of the alleged defamatory publication.
But the court, in a ruling delivered on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, dismissed the suit against Mr. Agyapong.
According to an online publication by Accra-based Asaase Radio, the court held that the plaintiff, Mr. Anas failed to prove that the MP defamed him by airing his documentary, ‘ Who Watches the Watchman’. Rather, the documentary exposed shady deals the investigative journalist and his associates were involved in.
The court, the publication added, further held that Mr. Agyapong provided enough evidence to prove that Mr. Anas used findings of his works to solicit money from implicated persons and exempted those who were able to pay the monies he demanded.
It said the court concluded that what Mr. Anas is engaged in is not investigative journalism but investigative terrorism and that Mr. Agyapong was justified to call him “a blackmailer, corrupt, an extortionist, and evil”.
