Mensah Thompson
A HIGH Court presided over by Justice Charles Edward Ekow Baiden has awarded GH¢10 million damages against three National Democratic Congress (NDC) sympathisers in a defamation case brought against them by the younger brother of President Akufo-Addo.
Listowel Nana Kusi-Poku of the Good Governance Advocacy Ghana, Kwabena Bobie Ansah of Accra-based Class FM, and Mensah Thompson of the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), as well as the Class Media Group lost in the defamation suit instituted against them by Edward Akufo-Addo.
The three were ordered to pay GH¢10 million for defamation contained in the publication authored by them on May 29, 2021 on Class FM, having alleged that President Akufo-Addo had been misusing the country’s presidential jet by offering it to the plaintiff.
While Kwabena Bobie Ansah, Mensah Thompson, and the Class Media Group entered appearance to challenge the suit, the fourth defendant, Listowel Nana Kusi-Poku failed to enter appearance to defend himself.
After a full trial of the case, the court found the three guilty of defamation and granted in favour of the plaintiff/applicant a judgment in default of appearance against Listowel Nana Kusi-Poku.
The court again ordered the defendants to apologise and retract the words complained in the publication of the defamation, and placed a perpetual injunction on them and their assigns, agents and servants from repeating the same words or other similar words against the plaintiff.
Background
Edward Akufo-Addo, younger brother of President Akufo-Addo, on June 3, 2021, filed a defamation suit against the Class Media Group, the operator of Accra 100.5 FM, and the three individuals.
According to him, the defendants accused him of having access to and using Ghana’s presidential jet because of his family ties to the President, and prayed for four reliefs jointly from the defendants.
They include the GH¢10 million damages for the publication of the defamatory words, retraction and apology of the defamatory words in the publication, and the perpetual injunction to restrain the defendants from carrying out similar allegations against him in the future.
It was the contention of the plaintiff that the three individuals impugned his integrity by suggesting that President Akufo-Addo rejected the presidential jet and indicated that it could not fly because he (the plaintiff) was using it.
He said Mensah Thompson in particular alleged on the radio that he (Edward), who is popularly known as Bompty “uses the presidential jet” and that “the presidential jet is at the disposal of Bompty, your brother.”
“It is the one he travels wherever he goes. When you have wasted the resources of the country to rent the private jet, then your brother would be cruising in this one,” the plaintiff quoted the defendants as saying on the radio.