Lawyer for investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, Kissi Agyebeng, says the controversial journalist and his team have been sued over 25 times since the premiere of the #Number12 video which captured supposed corruption in Ghana football.
According to him, during the corruption exposé on the judiciary in 2015, they received over 40 lawsuits, and so the 25 lawsuits are even “a small scale.”
“If I could recall, in 2015 after the judges’ scandal, there were at least 40 lawsuits, but this time, a month after premiering the [#Number12] exposé, we have received more than 25 lawsuits,” he said on Eyewitness News on Friday.
[contextly_sidebar id=”DCf3fCMrz3b9pjLFN5eLdtfbmMjZhbqO”]Kissi Agyebeng of the Cromwell Gray LLP law firm noted that although they have information that his client has been sued in 25 different cases, they have been served with only three.
Anas’ lawyer made the revelation on the back of a lawsuit filed against them at an Accra High Court by Communications Director of the Ghana Football Association, Ibrahim Saanie Daara for alleged defamation.
Anas and his Tigereye PI team published and showed a video in June 2018 which captured top officials of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), and over 70 referees in supposed acts of corruption.
Saanie Daara, who was also captured in the video according to Anas, refused to accept the money given to him, but directed that the money be given to a man standing close to him, alleged to be his [Saanie Daara’s] colleague.
This amount according to the narration, was to get Saanie to influence a player’s call-up to the Black Stars, but in that video, Saanie explained to the team that a player’s call-up was solely the prerogative of the coach, and it also dependent on the player’s performance.
Mr. Daara has denied the claims by Anas,explaining that the said individual in the video was not his colleague, and that he was a member of Anas’ team who was used to achieve their aim, hence his resort to the High Court to clear his name.
“Please let me be emphatic that I met them alone with no colleague of mine. The next person standing to me was Acquah who is no colleague of mine. He was brought by Anas to set me up. They blurred his face. If they claim he is my colleague they should have shown the face or mentioned his name in the least” Saanie told citinewsroom.com.
Saanie Daara in his writ asked the court to order Anas to pay him an amount of GHc20 million for damages the said video had caused him, and a perpetual injunction on the circulation of the video.
Reacting to Saanie Daara’s lawsuit, Mr. Kissi Agyebeng said they were expecting more of those.
“If you do corruption exposé on such a scale, you don’t expect people to just sit and watch. People will hit back at you…We are expecting these things,” he added.
The suits by Saanie Daara are in two parts – one for defamation, and the other for invasion of privacy.
Anas doctored Saanie Daara’s video – Lawyer
Dominic Ayine, the lawyer representing Ibrahim Saanie Daara has accused Anas of doctoring the video to implicate his client.
“I would state very clearly upon watching the video we could not but come to the conclusion that, the video was edited and doctored to put our client in a bad light,” he said on Eyewitness News on Friday.
He also explained that his client never took any money from the investigative journalist and his team as suggested.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin
