The Winneba Magistrate Court on Friday, August 28, 2020, gave its judgment in a defamatory suit brought against James Kofi Annan by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin.
In the decision of the court, a press conference held by Mr Annan, which was widely circulated in the media, was not only defamatory but slanderous as well.
The Winneba Magistrate Court consequently slapped him with GHC20,000 as damages and additional GHC5,000 as cost of legal fees.
Mr Annan has also been ordered to not only write to all the media networks that published his defamatory effusions at that press conference but to also go to all the radio and television stations he used for his agenda to retract and apologise to the MP for defaming him.
These, he is to embark upon not later than Monday, August 31, 2020. Failure to do these would result in consequences he may not be able to withstand.
It could be recalled that the defendant, Mr Annan, held a press conference and, among other things, alleged that Mr Afenyo-Markin had plotted an allegation of financial impropriety against him and that the Effutu MP was involved in a grand scheme to taint his image and to jeopardise his chances of winning the Effutu seat as the candidate of the National Democratic Congress.
Mr Afenyo-Markin, as a result, petitioned the court to seek damages for impugning ill motives against his person, reliefs the court has granted and ordered the defendant to strictly adhere to.
