US judge slashes $18m defamation award to $500

A US court has slashed the $18m (£13.6m) awarded to Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas in a defamation case to $500.

Former Ghanaian MP Kennedy Agyapong was ordered to pay the huge sum after a jury found he had defamed Anas by calling him a “criminal”, and of being behind the murder of a fellow journalist.

Following a request by Agyapong’s legal team for the amount to be reduced, a judge in a New Jersey court has ruled that $18m was “disproportionate and legally unsustainable”, the former MP said on X.

Anas said he would appeal against the ruling, despite his Tiger Eye P.I. media group previously saying that the case was never about money.

The journalist began legal action against Agyapong after the ex-MP made the defamatory remarks following his investigation into football corruption in Ghana and elsewhere.

Anas had filed an initial case in Ghana where he lost, with the judge describing his work not as journalism but as “investigative terrorism”.

He subsequently brought a different case before a court in the US, where Agyapong owns a home and where the ex-MP was when he recorded the defamatory interview on the Daddy Fred Show podcast, according to court papers.

Agyapong’s lawyers had argued that their client’s comments were simply opinions and therefore should not be subject to defamation.

However, the eight-panel jury in New Jersey’s Essex County Superior Court disagreed, ruling unanimously in Anas’ favour in March.

At the time, he told the BBC the ruling was a “vindication of what I have always preached”.

“This goes a long way to encourage African journalists across the continent there’s a need for us to be resilient. There’s a need for us to have a stomach to take the heat,” Anas said.

After succeeding in his attempt to reduce the defamation award, Agyapong has committed himself to “upholding the values of integrity” and defending “truth and accountability in public life”.

The journalist is well known for masking his identity by wearing beaded face coverings.

He has also won multiple international awards for his reporting and has vowed to continue fighting corruption and holding wrongdoers accountable.

Ahmed Suale, an investigative journalist who was shot dead in 2019, was a colleague of Anas who had also investigated corruption and had worked with Tiger Eye P.I..

Anas has previously told the BBC that he was still grieving the death of his former colleague.