The Accra High Court has determined that the Defendant in the Ghc10 million defamation suit, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, is not ready to move the case forward.
Justice Adu-Owusu Agyeman (Rev. Fr) who is presiding over the case, observed in a ruling, dated 22 October, this year, that “It is clear to this Court that the Defendant and his Lawyer are not ready to move this case forward in that for several times this Court has accommodated them in the filing of the Witness Statement to the detriment of the Plaintiff and his Lawyer who are always ready to go on with the case by filing all the necessary processes required of them.”
Nevertheless, Court has ruled that “This Court will move on with the Case Management Conference (CMC) of the Plaintiff and strike out the Statement of Defence of the Defendant for the want of filing the Witness Statement per the provisions of C.I. 87.
The Plaintiff is hereby invited to conduct his Case Management Conference (CMC).”
CMC, the court added, completed in respect of the Plaintiff’s case and therefore adjourned the case to 20 November 2024, at 12.30pm, for the commencement of the trial.
So far, the paper gathered that lawyer Bright Okyere-Adjekum, Counsel for Albert Kan Dapaah, the Plaintiff, has filed two Witness Statements, that of the “Plaintiff himself and that of Maj. Gen. Emmanuel W. Kotia, filed on the 11th of March, 2024, and 5th March, 2024, respectively. We have also filed our pre-trial checklist on the 11th of March, 2024.”
The ruling has been published on the front-page of this paper.
The former convener of the #FixTheCountry Movement, has been dragged to court by
the Minister of National Security, Kan Dapaah, for alleging that the National Security and other government officials met him in 2021 and offered him money to supposedly silence him.
Mr. Barker-Vormawor claimed that he was offered an amount of $1 million and other juicy positions in government in order to stop their activism, which he claimed was supposedly painting the government black.
Barker-Vormawor made the allegations after he and others were released by the police after they were arrested on September 22, for staging a demonstration in Accra in breach of a restraining order secured by the police.
The National Security Minister, in his suit, is among other things asking the court to declare that the words uttered by Barker-Vormawor are defamatory.
He is also demanding the “recovery of the sum of Ten Million Ghana Cedis (GHC10,000,000.00) as General Damages, including Aggravated and/or Exemplary Damages for Defamation for the words uttered by Defendant.”
Hon. Kan Dapaah is also demanding an apology for and retraction of the words complained of as well as “a perpetual injunction restraining the Defendant from repeating similar or other defamatory words against the Plaintiff.”
The activist insisted that he had evidence to his claim, but he is yet to make the files public.
