Kweku Baako wins defamatory case against Kennedy Agyapong

An Accra High court has ruled in favour of Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako JNR in his case against Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong.

The court has given the lawmaker a 30-day ultimatum to retract and apologise three times on the platforms he used to defame Kwaku Baako.

The legislator also got a damage set at GH¢100,000 with cost of GH¢30,000.

Kweku Baako in 2018 sued Assin Central MP at the Accra High Court over defamatory comments on different occasions at an Accra-based radio station.

The lawmaker is quoted to have said “You [referring to the plaintiff], Anas and your lawyer, yeah, they are real evil guys [referring to the plaintiff and Anas] … Kweku Baako will collapse NPP’s government should he allow it. Have you seen what he started with Charlotte Osei…?”

Mr Baako in the writ of summons also stated that the defendant on a talk show (Adom Badwam) on Adom FM on July 24, 2018, with host Omanhene Kwabena Asante, when one of the panelists suggested to the defendant that the plaintiff is very loyal to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and a best friend to the president, the defendant referring to him [Kweku Baako] said: “You don’t know the guy very well. Best of friends because of what he can get…You don’t know the guy very well.”

The plaintiff avers the defendant further made the following disparaging statement against him on the same show: “I said he is not a saint. Kweku Baako is not a saint. He is evil … very evil man … he’s a very evil man.”

It was based on the comment Kweku Baako went to court praying that the court directs Mr Agyapong to “publish on three consecutive occasions on the same platform that he published the defamatory words, an unqualified retraction and an apology, with the same prominence as given to the issuance of the defamatory words. Other costs including legal fees and any others as this honourable court may deem fit.”

He also requested damages to the sum of GH¢25 million for defamation.