Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP) Kennedy Agyapong excused President Akufo-Addo’s promise to use the Anas principle to fight corruption saying it was uttered out of ignorance.
According to the Assin Central deputy, the then candidate Akufo-Addo did not fully know Anas Aremeyaw Anas, hence the promise to use the “Principle of Anas”.
A video from Adom TV Badwam of Assin’s core MP that went viral shows the MP angrily criticizing investigative journalist Ace Anas Aremeyaw Anas for being a criminal blackmailer.
MyNewsGh.com verifications show that the video that went viral on YouTube was the basis of Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ defamation suit against the would-be PNP standard-bearer.
“Akufo-Addo said that he will use the Anas Principle? I think President Akufo-Addo said that because he didn’t know Anas well,” Kennedy Agyapong responded to Allotey Jacobs, who was his co-panelist.
“I will bring the evidence for the Chief of Staff and the President to observe and see what kind of blackmailers we are dealing with,” he added.
In court, world-renowned investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas suffered a severe blow when an Accra High Court ruled against him in the libel case he brought against Kennedy Agyapong for these comments.
Anas demanded GH¢25 million for damages, but the court in its ruling on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, said that the claim lacks merit.
The judge, Judge Eric Baah, also upheld Mr. Agyapong’s arguments that Anas is an extortionist and blackmailer.
“That is not investigative journalism. It is investigative terrorism. Is [an] exercise of indirect political power under the cloak of journalism,” the Appeals Court judge who was sitting with additional responsibility as a Superior Court judge said in his ruling.
Judge Baah ruled that: “Defendant’s statement was substantially factual and therefore justified. It could not have succeeded in slandering the plaintiff. Some of the long list of words made up by the defendant and presented as Exhibit C could have defamatory meanings, but none were shown to actually defame the plaintiff.”
“I declare, in conclusion, that although all the statements based on annexes KOA1, KOA2, KOA3 and KOA4 were true and factual, therefore they supported [the] defense of justification and fair comment of the defendant, the statements in the annex C of the plaintiff; although capable of defamatory meanings, it was not shown that they actually slandered the plaintiff. I found the affirmations of [the] meritless plaintiff. It is rejected.”
