Kennedy Agyapong, the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, has filed an appeal in a defamation lawsuit that he previously lost against Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako, the Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide. The initial case was filed in 2018 and ended in 2020 with the court ruling in favor of Baako and awarding him damages worth 130,000 cedis, which he declined to accept.
Baako’s primary objective was to clear his name of allegations made by Agyapong that he was involved in illegal small-scale mining, also known as “galamsey,” although Agyapong publicly declared that he would not pay the damages awarded.
After three years, Agyapong has appealed the decision in court papers dated May 5th, 2023, with the primary basis for the appeal being the Frimpong-Boateng galamsey report of 2021, which was recently leaked to the media.
The appeal argues that one of the primary points in dispute is a statement made by Agyapong about Baako’s involvement in galamsey activities by intervening on behalf of a company named C&G Aleska. The intervention involved Agyapong contacting the Chairman of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), who was also the Minister for Environment Science, Technology, and Innovation, to allow C&G Aleska to resume illegal mining activities, even though their license had been revoked. This confirmed Baako’s involvement in influence peddling, which also amounted to his participation in galamsey.
Agyapong’s comment on this intervention was that Baako was also involved in galamsey. During the trial, Agyapong’s efforts to have the Chairman of the IMCIM, Frimpong-Boateng, testify and support his claims proved unsuccessful, making it impossible for Agyapong to establish his defense of true, fair comment, and thus justifiable.
On April 18th, 2023, Agyapong came across a confidential document from the Office of the President of Ghana that contained a report prepared by Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, which intrinsically addressed Agyapong’s concerns about the role played by Baako on behalf of C&G Aleska, which was involved in galamsey activities.
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