Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement at the Centre for Democratic Development Ghana (CDD-Ghana), Dr. Kojo Pumpuni Asante has shared his view on the use of subterfuge by investigative journalists in their quest to bring some deeds of corruption to light.
According to him, there are many cases that demand that the investigators resort to deception in order to bring the issue to the attention of the public for thorough investigations to be conducted in order to punish the perpetrators.
For some time now, some members of the public have questioned the methods employed by the renowned Investigative Journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, in his various exposé.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, Dr Asante justified the use of subterfuge.
“… there are many issues around corruption that you have to use subterfuge to get to the matter.
“And often when it happens, it will lead to an investigation—a substantive investigation—like in the FIFA case, it led to a substantive investigation and then it helps society to address these problems in society,” he added.
Dr. Asante’s comments were in relation to a high court’s decision that Anas dabbles in “investigative terrorism”.
It would be recalled that on March 15, Justice Eric Baah issued a ruling dismissing Anas Aremeyaw Anas’s June 2018 defamation suit against the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong.
The Judge dismissed the case for lacking merit and added that the plaintiff’s [Anas] practice was that of “investigative terrorism” but not investigative journalism.
“From the above, I hold that the plaintiff [Anas] is a blackmailer who uses blackmail to extort money from his opponents and people he does not like. What the plaintiff is doing is not investigative journalism but investigative terrorism,” Justice Baah said.
But the plaintiff, Anas, has also responded to the ruling by Justice Baah, via a short video uploaded on his Facebook page, March 16, that he will be seeking an appeal on the judge’s pronouncement on the case.
In the video, he stated that “Although the news about the dismissal of our defamation suit against the Member of Parliament was unexpected, I disagree with the judge’s reason based on law and the facts.
“My team of lawyers and I have carefully studied the judgement delivered by the court and we are unanimous that the judge made an overreach and descended into the arena and made a criminal pronouncement about me as if I was standing a criminal trial,”
Dr Asante said he has concerns over the judge’s ruling and the manner in which the case was treated.
“There is a lot of contention around the evidence that is used to convict in this manner… for me, by this you have convicted Anas of a serious crime, a number of crimes…
“And I find that there’s no way in my humble estimation that you can treat a criminal process like this in this way. So I find a lot of problems with it,” he said.
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