The Multimedia Group journalist, Mr. Stephen Kwettey Nartey, who is the first defendant in a suit brought against him and his employer by Mr. Frank Asiedu Bekoe, Political Director at the Office of the Chief of Staff, made a quick dash to Accra High Court GJ3 within the Accra Courts Complex last Wednesday after hearing that processes for substituted service against him was going to be initiated.
This was after he had succeeded in running away from court bailiffs who are to serve him with the suit for several months.
His presence in court made the counsel for the plaintiff, Mr. Gary Nimako, to withdraw the intended application for the substituted service.
Shockingly, Kwettey Nartey and myjoyonline.com were quick in twisting what actually transpired at court, claiming that the court threw out the application for substituted service.
As if the matter was a trial on facebook, the Multimedia journalist had also twisted events at court in a facebook post, forcing the plaintiff to question the calibre of journalists Multimedia Group engages.
Mr. Bekoe sued Mr. Nartey, a broadcast journalist, working with Joy TV and the Multimedia Group, for publishing a false documentary against him.
Mr. Nartey and the Multimedia Group ran a documentary to the effect that Mr. Bekoe allocated and auctioned seized vehicles to politically connected cronies of the government without the beneficiaries paying the required assessed duties.
Mr. Bekoe says that the documentary was defamatory and therefore claiming compensatory damages in the sum of Ten Million Ghana Cedis (GHC10, 000,000.00) from Mr. Nartey and the Multimedia Group.
Apart from that, Mr. Bekoe wants a declaration from the court that the publication on Joy TV against him in connection with the auction vehicles was defamatory and was made without any basis.
The plaintiff wants an order of injunction directed at the defendants, agents, assigns and privies from continuing to air the said defamatory documentary.
Again, Mr. Bekoe wants an order of the court directed at Mr. Nartey and the Multimedia Group to retract and render unqualified apology in the same prominence on Joy TV and four publications in the Daily Graphic.
In addition, Mr. Bekoe is asking the court for general damages and costs, including legal fees.
A statement of claim in a suit filed by Mr. Gary Nimako of Safo & Marfo @ Law on March 4, 2020, said that the publication by the defendants which was widely circulated has damaged the plaintiff’s (Mr. Bekoe) image as a public officer.
Mr. Bekoe avers that by the standards of journalistic practice, Mr. Nartey and the Multimedia Group ought to have also cross-checked with relevant facts with him before putting the documentary out, which they woefully failed to do so.
“It is clear that the defendants sought to embark on a one-sided piece of work that was carefully calculated, designed, crafted to malign and destroy the reputation of the Plaintiff in the eyes of right-thinking members of society,’’ the statement said.
It said: “The publication of the Defendants has seriously affected Mr. Bekoe’s reputation in the public space, includingsocial and print media.”
Source: The Inquisitor