The Fast Track High Court in Accra yesterday refused to grant reliefs sought by former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings in a libel suit she filed against the Editor of the Daily Guide newspaper and two others. Nana Konadu had sued Mrs Gina Blay, the Editor and a former Deputy Editor of the paper, Mr Ato Sam, also known as Baby Ansaba, and the Western Publications, publishers of the newspaper, for publishing an article which talked about Konadu’s company’s indebtedness to the government. She averred that the wording of the headline of the publication “Milking the Sacred Cow, Konadu Owes 2.8 million cedis to the State”, on July 6, 2005, was published with malice and therefore filed for general damages. She had prayed the court to restrain the defendants from further publishing more libelous statements and other stories about her and also requested the court to grant costs and other reliefs the court might deem necessary. According to her, the story portrayed her as using her position as the President of the 31st December Women’s Movement and Director of Caridem Development Company to obtain money from the state for her own personal gain. The respondents however denied the charge of malice on the grounds that the words, together with the contents of the story, were a fair comment on matters of public interest. They said the story was about the use of sums of money provided by international donor organizations for the financing investment drive of the Republic of Ghana, some of which were subsequently made available to Caridem Development Limited, a company wholly owned by the 31st December Women’s Movement. Konadu was also the company’s director. The trial Judge, Mrs Iris May Brown, upheld the respondents’ argument that the story was of public interest and was published without malice but to bring the public’s attention to Caridem’s indebtedness to the state. The court held that the Konadu was the First Lady at the time she took the government loan to advance her ventures and the matter should be of public interest if she had not paid back the loan for sometime. The court also took into consideration two apologies published by the respondents to the plaintiff in connection with the headline of the story and the fact that Konadu did not deny the authenticity of the contents of the story. The court held that the headline and content of a story must be taken together to form a strong basis of defamation. It said one could not select words complained of to establish a case, adding that in any case Konadu failed to convince the court on how the public understood and linked the word “Milking a Sacred Cow” to her. It, therefore, ruled that it was not proper for Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings to take the headline in isolation and accuse the defendants of libel when she had admitted the authenticity of the story. Source: Daily Graphic