The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Briamah says the ruling by the High Court Judge in the defamation case filed by Investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas against MP for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong defamed the complainant.
This, he explained in an interview on JoyNews’ Newfile on Saturday, is because the Judges’ decision “went beyond probing whether what Kennedy Agyapong said was true, or not true, justifiable, fair and whatever, to actually himself defaming the character of Anas.”"I believe that if this was being said on the streets that would have amounted to another instance of defamation," he continued.He said that the judge's decision was confusing.According to the ruling, the defendant acknowledges making all of those claims and states, "I will demonstrate that what I said they were true, were justified, and they were fair." Therefore, I was following what I was reading in that manner. Okay, so this will be interesting. I'm going to check to see if these claims of not being a thief, murderer, or anything else were actually proven in court.“I saw a clear instance of, you know, the case moving beyond Kennedy's ability to demonstrate that Anas is a murderer, extortionist, etc. to the judge examining Anas' method and whether or not that is journalistically appropriate. Then I thought to myself, "Oh, was this judge a journalist before becoming a judge?" at that point.
Or was he a media-related academic prior to becoming a judge? Mr. Braimah wondered because it was clear that he was attempting to determine what is right and wrong to the point where he said, "What has been practiced is not investigative journalism, but something else."
