The Superior Court of New Jersey, has awarded investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas $18 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit against former Member of Parliament (MP), Kennedy Agyapong, and Frederick Asamoah, a social media commentator.
The judgment, comes after a lengthy legal battle stemming from alleged defamatory statements made by the defendants during a 2021 interview broadcast on social media.
The lawsuit, filed on May 17, 2022, in the Essex County Superior Court, accused Kennedy Agyapong and Frederick Asamoah, of making false and damaging statements about Anas during an episode of “The Daddy Fred Show,” a popular online programme targeting Ghanaian audiences in the United States.
The interview, which was streamed live on Facebook and other platforms, garnered over 29,000 views and contained several defamatory claims against Anas.
Anas, an investigative journalist known for exposing corruption and human rights abuses, argued that the defendants’ statements, were part of a calculated effort to tarnish his reputation and discredit his work.
The defamatory remarks, included allegations that Anas was a criminal, a thief, and responsible for the murder of Ahmed Suale, an undercover journalist who worked with Anas on the explosive documentary “Number 12.”
The late Suale was tragically murdered in January 2019, and no one has been convicted for the crime to date.
The court document claimed that Kennedy Agyapong, made several false statements during the interview, including Claiming that Anas was a criminal who had been convicted of crimes in Ghana.
He had also alleged that Anas was behind the murder of Ahmed Suale and accusing Anas of being responsible for the deaths of multiple Chinese nationals in Ghana.
He stated that Anas was a thief.
The court awarded Anas a total of US$18 million in damages.
Meanwhile, lawyers for Kennedy Agyapong, have applied for remittitur – a reduction in the amount of damages awarded.
This comes days after an Accra High Court in Ghana on March 15, dismissed the GH¢25 million defamation suit against Kennedy Agyapong brought by Anas.
The judge, Justice Eric Baah, held that Anas Aremeyaw Anas, failed to prove that Ken Agyapong defamed him by airing the documentary “Who watches the watchman”—rather, the documentary exposed shady deals that Anas and his associates were involved in.
Anas prayed to the court to award GH¢25 million against Mr Agyapong to compensate him for the defamatory material published against him by the MP.
The court concluded that what Anas is engaged in is not investigative journalism, but rather “investigative terrorism” and that Mr Agyapong, was justified in calling Anas “a blackmailer, corrupt, an extortionist, and evil”.