Africa

Ghanaian court jails 3 over radio threat to judges

Comments broadcast in June see radio presenter, guests receive four months in prison

Ekip  | 27.07.2016 - Update : 27.07.2016
Ghanaian court jails 3 over radio threat to judges

Greater Accra

By Umaru Sanda Amadu

ACCRA, Ghana

Ghana’s Supreme Court has sentenced a radio journalist and two political commentators to four months' imprisonment after being found guilty of threatening to kill justices of the court.

Journalist Salifu Maase and two panelists, Alistair Nelson and Godwin Ako Gunn, were also fined around $2,500 each or will serve an additional one month in prison in default.

The three were brought before the Supreme Court after making comments on radio deemed to be contemptuous of the institution.

“I know where the judges live in Accra …When we finish them, then it will be over," one of the panelists was heard saying on Accra-based Montie FM in June.

The verbal threat came at a time when the court was hearing a crucial case about Ghana's voter register for the keenly contested 2016 election.

In sentencing the trio in Accra on Wednesday, presiding judge Sophia Akufo said they “willfully attacked the Chief Justice and lowered the authority of the court”.

She observed that the comments are reminiscent of the gruesome murder of three High Court judges in the country some 30 years ago.

The owners of the radio station, who were earlier convicted of the charges, were also fined around $7,500 for failing in their regulatory obligations. The radio station, which broadcasts in the local Akan language, is largely viewed as sympathetic to the governing National Democratic Congress, NDC.

Reactions

Hundreds of supporters of the convicts massed at the court premises to protest the sentencing. Shortly after the sentencing, an announcer on the radio called on supporters to converge on the premises of the radio station for a vigil.

President of the Ghana Journalists’ Association, Affail Monney, said in a local radio interview after the sentence: “We need to know that as media practitioners we have a duty to educate, inform and entertain and these must be done with care”.

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