(MFWA/IFEX) – On 28 July 2005, high court in Accra ordered the independent weekly, “National Democrat”, to pay Ghana’s Minister of State for Defence, Kwame Addo- Kufuor, 400 million cedis (approx. US$44,000) in damages for publishing an article that the minister considered defamatory. The court also awarded 10 million Cedis (approx. US$1,100) in costs against […]
(MFWA/IFEX) – On 28 July 2005, high court in Accra ordered the independent weekly, “National Democrat”, to pay Ghana’s Minister of State for Defence, Kwame Addo- Kufuor, 400 million cedis (approx. US$44,000) in damages for publishing an article that the minister considered defamatory.
The court also awarded 10 million Cedis (approx. US$1,100) in costs against D.D.D Publications, the newspaper’s publishers, and Ebenezer Josiah, a former editor of the paper.
In its 4-6 October edition, “National Democrat” had published an article under the title “Addo-Kufuor in trouble – has questions to answer on the serial killings,” implicating the minister in the serial murder of over 30 Ghanaian women between 1999 and 2000. The minister’s photo was published along with the story and a caption that read, “Hon Addo-Kufuor – will he tell the truth?” According to the minister, the article portrayed him as a serial killer of women. He issued a statement denying the allegations contained in the story.
“National Democrat” – a newspaper that supports the opposition National Democratic Congress Party – refused to withdraw the story or to apologise to Addo-Kufuor. Instead, the paper continued to publish articles with accompanying photos implicating the minister.
The court ruled that the articles were “baseless and without any foundation,” and awarded damages to compensate the minister for the injury caused to his reputation but also to make the paper “feel the pinch of [its] wrongful conduct.”
A demand for a perpetual injunction to restrain “National Democrat” from publishing further libellous claims against the minister was dismissed.
In 2001, a man was arrested, tried and convicted for the same serial murders of the over 30 women referred to by the paper.
MFWA notes that in recent months, the courts have been awarding excessively high damages against media outlets in Ghana found guilty in libel suits. MFWA believes that while some of the stated libellous material does expose exceedingly objectionable professional conduct, the trend of awarding such exorbitant damages generally weakens press freedom.
