President Kufuor's Nephew Sues Democrat

The Director General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GHAPOHA), Mr. Ben Owusu Mensah, has filed a suit at the Accra High Court, seeking punitive damages against the Democrat newspaper and its editor, Elliot Felix Ohene.

The action followed a publication in the May 12 to May 15, 2005 issue of the newspaper, which according to the suit made very offensive and defamatory statements about the plaintiff. The plaintiff is praying the court for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from further publishing or causing to be published the said or similar words defamatory of the plaintiff.

A statement of claim accompanying the writ referred to the publication which authoritatively disclosed that the plaintiff, who it claimed was the nephew of the President, had acquired six houses in a matter of four years.

According to the statement, in the said publication, the defendant in complete malice and unbridled capacity to peddle falsehood, adorned the front page pictures of houses which did not belong to the plaintiff.

It said on page three of the same issue, another picture of a house was portrayed as the property of the plaintiff, which the defendants knew or ought to have known was false. The statement said in the natural and ordinary meaning, the words meant and were understood to mean that the plaintiff, who is a relation of the President of Ghana, was corrupt and a criminal, having made substantial material acquisition through ill-gotten and politically-generated money. "In consequence, the plaintiff's reputation has been seriously damaged, and has been put in a very bad light.

Furthermore, his esteem has been lowered in the eyes of right-thinking members of society as the defendants picture him as a man of criminal propensities plying his trade in the Kufuor regime," the statement added. It said it would be proved in court that the plaintiffs had embarked upon a campaign of vilification and calumny against the Kufuor government.