Tema, Oct. 07, GNA - Mr Abraham Ossei-Aidooh, MP for Tema West has filed separate suits at a Tema High Court against Mr Azure Sampana, Tema West Constituency Chairman of the New Patriotic Party for libel and slander. Mr Ossei-Aiddo, who is also the Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, is also seeking the court to restrain Mr Azure, his servants or agents from publication of any words that would injure his personal and public reputation and bring him into public scandal and contempt.

In his statements of claim, Mr Ossei-Aidoo, represented by Lawyers Sam Kyei and Richard Akpakavi, said the Constituency Chairman on or about September 4, 2008, at a fitting workshop at Tema Community Two spoke and published "words of defamatory" to the effect that the Plaintiff was printing campaign "T" shirts and vigorously campaigning for the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Mr Azure, according to the writ, had in a letter addressed to the National Chairman of the NPP accused of Mr Ossei-Aidooh of engaging the services of the constituency organiser, Mr Francis Poribo to recruit some young men to actively campaign against, Mrs Irene Addo, the elected candidate of the NPP for the constituency in the December elections. The said letter was copied to the National Campaign Committee, the Chairman of the Greater Accra Region Campaign Committee and the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the NPP.

Mr Ossei-Aidoo said the letter had also said that the Party Office had been used to distribute NDC "T" shirts to participants of keep-fits organised by the NDC.

The letter had said Mr Ossei-Aidooh, who was a friend to Mr George Medie, the Tema West NDC Parliamentary Candidate for the December Elections, had had procured and printed the "T" shirts. According to Mr Ossei-Aidooh, the defendant had said, these actions were to enable the NDC win the forthcoming December 2008 elections in the Tema West Constituency.

In a comment, the Judge Mr Goerge Offei, who presided, observed that both parties were of the same party, and appealed to them not to wash their dirty linen in public, but rather solve their differences amicably. The case was adjourned for October 17, 2008.