Court dismisses Kennedy Agyapong’s application to halt Anas’ defamation suit
An Accra High Court has dismissed an application by lawyers for Kennedy Agyapong to halt the defamation trial before it.
Member of Parliament for Assin Central and his legal team had filed a decision challenging a court’s order to sustain an objection raised by lawyers for Anas Aremeyaw Anas during the cross-examination.
The court, on Tuesday, dismissed the application on grounds that the NPP legislator and his lawyers failed to raise any exceptional circumstances under which the trial should be stayed.
The court ordered that the defendants continue with their cross-examination of Anas.
It further awarded a cost of GH₵1,500 against Kennedy Agyapong.
During the cross-examination, lawyers for the NPP legislator had asked Anas’ lawful attorney to mention the number of people in the ‘who watches the watchman’ video.
This question, lawyers thought was irrelevant and unfair to the progress of the case and raised an objection on that ground.
It was their view that it was unfair for a person to easily recall how many people are in a video from memory.
The judge agreed with the objection and asked lawyers for Kennedy Agyapong to ask another question.
But the lawyers still insisted on the same question, which led to them following up with an application for stay of proceedings.
The case has been adjourned to October 30, 2020.
Background of the case
Investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, in 2018, filed a GH₵ 25 million defamation suit against the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong.
The suit follows the NPP legislator’s comment on his media outlet, throwing a lot of accusations about the renowned investigative journalist.
Before the premier of one of his investigative videos, Kennedy Agyapong, had raised issues with the journalist’s inability to pay taxes, his use of landguards to grab people’s properties and other things.
Allegations, the NPP legislator, is yet to provide evidence to.
Anas, is therefore, seeking reliefs including general damages for libel, as well as aggravated damages arising from the libellous comments.