Counsel for 'tortured' journalists to sue National Security

The Counsel for the ModernGhana journalists who were allegedly tortured and manhandled by operatives of the National Security Secretariat have resolved to sue the Secretariat.

Deputy Editor Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri and reporter Emmanuel Britwum were detained by the Secretariat following a raid of their office on Thursday, 27 June 2018 and subsequent arrest for alleged hacking and cybercrime offences.

The Deputy Editor claims he was kicked, punched and tasered while in detention for nearly 48 hours and interrogated on two critical articles they had written about National Security Minister Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah and the MP for Effutu Alexander Afenyo-Markin.

The two journalists were apprehended by National Security operatives on Thursday, 27 June 2018, detained and allegedly tortured over stories they published about the National Security Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah.

However, the National Security Secretariat has refuted the torture claims and described it as false.

After a meeting at the Ministries Police Station on Tuesday, 2 July 2019, one of the lawyers for the journalists, Mr Sampson Lardi Anyenini, said one of his colleagues “will begin the process of issuing the civil processes and we will all put our heads together to see how we can assist”.

He said in due course, the civil processes will be served “against the perpetrators of the illegal and unconstitutional and criminal conduct”.

Mr Anyenini expressed concern about the manner in which the operatives raided the officers of ModernGhana and seized the phones and laptops of the journalists.

He raised issues about how long the journalists were kept at a secret location “without an opportunity for them to have access to their counsel and even at the point where they were being processed, even at the police station, they were still doing that process without the benefit of counsel”.



The private legal practitioner wondered how having a password to the news database of another media organisation, as alleged by the operatives against the journalists, could constitute hacking.

“Let’s wait and see what offence or charge they (National Security Secretariat) will proffer because clearly, there is none,” he added.