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 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 case, filed on May 17, 2022, in the Essex County Superior Court, accused Kennedy Agyapong and Frederick Asamoah of making false and injurious claims about Anas on an episode of “The Daddy Fred Show,” a prominent internet program targeting Ghanaian audiences in the United States.
The interview, which was streamed live on Facebook and other platforms, received over 29,000 views and included multiple derogatory statements about Anas.
Anas, an investigative journalist recognized for exposing corruption and human rights violations, claimed that the defendants’ words were part of a deliberate campaign to smear his name and undermine his work.
The defamatory remarks included claims that Anas was a criminal, a thief, and responsible for the murder of Ahmed Suale, an undercover journalist who collaborated with Anas on the explosive documentary “Number 12.”
The late Suale was cruelly murdered in January 2019, and no one has been convicted for the crime to date.
According to the court record, Kennedy Agyapong allegedly made various false assertions during the interview, including:
Claiming that Anas was a criminal who had been convicted of crimes in Ghana.
Anas is accused of being behind Ahmed Suale’s murder.
Anas is accused of being responsible for the deaths of several Chinese nationals in Ghana.
Stating that Anas was a thief.
The court awarded Anas a total of $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 claim against Kennedy Agyapong brought by Anas.
The judge, Justice Eric Baah, ruled that Anas Aremeyaw Anas did not prove that Ken Agyapong defamed him by airing the documentary “Who watches the watchman”; rather, the documentary exposed shady deals in which Anas and his associates were involved.
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”.