“An anticorruption activist or journalist must be a man of the highest integrity himself! He cannot be a government agent under any excuse!” – Martin Amidu

Adolph Tetteh Adjei versus Anas Aremeyaw Anas

Adolph Tetteh Adjei obtained judgment in the High Court, Land Division, Accra against Anas Aremeyaw Anas in an action in which he claimed a declaration of title to a specified piece or parcel of land situate at East La Dadekotopon in the Greater Accra Region; damages for trespass; recovery of possession; and perpetual injunction restraining him from interfering with or disturbing the plaintiff’s peaceful occupation and possession of the piece of land.

This is the second judgment this year confirming that Anas Aremeyaw Anas is and has always been a criminally oriented person operating under the subterfuge of an anti-corruption crusader.

The judgment of Mr. Justice Kwame Gyamfi Osei in the case of Adolph Tetteh Adjei versus Anas Aremeyaw Anas, Suit No. LD/0256/2017, High Court, Accra, 4 May 2023 (Unreported) was so thorough and analytical in terms of both the claim of Adjei, the plaintiff, and the counterclaim of Mr. Anas, the 1st Defendant, before coming to the finding and decision that: “The Plaintiff has shown that his derivative title is grounded on solid and valid titles of his said grantors. His title is equally supported by exhibits the 1st Defendant’s witness brought to this court (See page 25 of the unreported certified judgment).”

On the counterclaim of Anas, the 1st Defendant, alleging fraud against the Plaintiff and his grantors, the High Court found that: “The 1st Defendant thereby failed woefully to prove that the parties to the Consent Judgment dated 12th July 2001 and the settlors of the Trust dated April 10 2002 took over the land of Tawiah Tsinaiatse fraudulently....” (See page 44 of the unreported certified judgment). The Court found further that: “The issue of fraud in my view is a figment of the 1st Defendant’s and DW1’s imagination and it was purposefully raised to avoid the agreement aforesaid...” (See pages 44-55 of the certified judgment thereof)”

What brings the integrity of the 1st Defendant Anas Aremeyaw Anas into question is the analysis and determination by the Court that: “From the evidence of the Plaintiff was in possession of the land until the 1st Defendant blazingly entered same and started construction day and night with the help of the Police and land guards. The structure he erected on the land is clearly unauthorized. Any prudent purchaser is required to do due diligence before acquisition but in this case 1st Defendant from the evidence did none.

"He entered the land and erected a sign post on the land with the inscription “TIGER EYE, KEEP OFF”. When an application was brought to join “TIGER EYE PI” to this suit, he resisted claiming the said entity has no interest in the land. His claim to the disputed land has no basis in law and in fact....” (See pages 48 of the unreported
certified judgment thereof).

Anas Aremeyaw Anas has presented himself and his Tiger Eye PI both locally and
internationally as a journalist and lawyer who has dedicated himself through the
instrumentality of Tiger Eye PI to fighting corruption, and corruption-related offences by public officers and other breaches of the criminal law generally to engender moral rectitude in society.

After presenting himself to society as a moral and legal crusader against crime
generally and in particular, corruption and fraud in the broadest sense (Dr. Jekyll), Anas Aremeyaw Anas cannot in the same breath arrogate to himself the right to be above the law by indulging in the commission of similar offences or breaches of the civil law which in substance constitute corrupt and fraudulent behaviour as the case of Adolph Tetteh v Anas Aremeyaw Anas demonstrate is the true character of Anas Aremeyaw Anas (as Mr. Hyde).

An anti-corruption crusader who engages in the fight against corruption, fraud, smuggling and theft offences of all forms must obey all the rules binding on institutional law enforcement officers under the Constitution and laws of Ghana. An anti-corruption crusader loses the honour of being a crusader when he abuses the trust the public and the law enforcement institutions have placed on him to literally steal lands with the assistance of the Ghana Police and land guards, from the rightful owners who have genuinely acquired title to them.

In the case of Anas Aremeyaw Anas who holds himself out both as a journalist and a lawyer, the ethical obligations placed on him by both professions do not permit him to blazingly enter on to Adolph Adjei’s land and start construction day and night with the help of the Police and land guards. Anas Aremeyaw Anas as a lawyer and a founding partner with William Kissi Agyebeng (now the Special Prosecutor) of Cromwell Gray LLP has no excuse for behaving in the manner the court found against him: “Any prudent purchaser is required to do due diligence before acquisition but in this case 1st Defendant from the evidence did none.”

The fact that Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the true personification of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the Ghanaian and international anti-corruption scamming scene, “....entered the land and erected a sign post on the land with the inscription “TIGER EYE, KEEP OFF”, but ‘When an application was brought to join “TIGER EYE PI” to this suit, he resisted claiming the said entity has no interest in the land’ confirms the true dubious character and person of an anti- corruption entrepreneur whose sole object in presenting himself as an anti-corruption
crusader is to use that popular rhetorical description to line his pockets with gold and silver.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas started his anti-corruption entrepreneurship double faced Saint and Satan criminal behaviour using the name Tiger Eye PI which existed only on a webpage without being registered with the Registrar of Companies or Registrar of Business Names in Ghana. Anas Aremeyaw Anas started operating under the name of Tiger Eye PI also in blazing breach of the prohibition of the Police Service (Private Security Organizations) Regulations, 1992 (L.I. 1571).

The unlawfulness of Tiger Eye PI’s anti-corruption entrepreneurial enterprise led this writer to write about Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI on 10 November 2015 as follows:

“There is no entity existing under the Constitution and laws of Ghana known as Tiger Eye or Tiger Eye PI. It only exists in a webpage created by the alleged CEO as a dummy with which the international and Ghanaian public has been conned for financial gain all these years. Any letter signed in the name of Tiger Eye or Tiger Eye PI is a fraud on the public.”

Once a criminal, always a criminal, no matter what disguises one wears to facilitate the commission of those crimes and other breaches of the law, whether criminal or in the form of breaches of the law of civil obligations, justice eventually catches up with such persons. Justice Kwame Gyamfi Osei’s judgment on Anas’ counterclaim for fraud against Adjei is an indictment upon the criminal conduct of Anas.

The Court concluded by declaring the Plaintiff as the owner of the disputed land; awarded GH¢60,000.00 general damages for trespass against the 1st Defendant; granted the plaintiff possession of the disputed land, and perpetually restraining the 1st Defendant from entering, carrying out any construction works or interfering with the disputed land; awarded cost of GH¢40,000 against the 1st Defendant; and dismissed the entire counterclaim of the 1st Defendant.

By the judgment of the High Court, Anas Aremeyaw Anas rather than Adolph Adjei
epitomizes fraud and fraudulent behaviour in the case. The charge of fraud made against Adjei turned against Anas as the person who was being fraudulent to dispossess the legal owner of the piece or parcel of land of his ownership and possession by the criminal abusive use of the Ghana Police and land guards. Mr. Justice Kwame Gyamfi Osei adopted and referred to an opinion of Taylor JSC on fraud in civil cases which aptly fits the character of Anas rather than Adjei:

“In my opinion a charge of fraud in law can be taken to be properly made against a party who knowingly or recklessly whether by conduct or words, uses unfair, wrongful or unlawful means to obtain a material advantage to the detriment of another party. It is an insidious form of corruption and it is therefore a charge involving moral obloquy. Bluntly put without equivocation, it is a species of dishonest conduct... .”

Anas knowingly used unfair, wrongful, and unlawful means to obtain ownership and
possession of Adolph Tetteh Adjei’s land to his detriment. Anas’s conduct against Adjei is, therefore, “...an insidious form of corruption and it is therefore a charge involving moral obloquy. Bluntly put without equivocation, it is a species of dishonest conduct... .”. This major premise depicting the character of Anas in this case allows one to conclude that Anas Aremeyaw Anas is not only an anti-corruption entrepreneur, but also a con man who uses the
purported crusade against corruption to expropriate land from law abiding citizens their lawfully acquired properties.

Anas versus Agyapong, March 15, 2023

The chickens have come home to roost for Anas Aremeyaw Anas: just on March 15, 2023 the High Court, Accra, (president over by Mr. Justice Eric Baah, a Court of Appeal judge sitting as an additional High Court judge), after hearing a defamation action brought by Anas Aremeyaw Anas against Kennedy Agyapong and considering the evidence adduced at the trial concluded against Anas Aremeyaw Anas that:

“In all honesty, the plot by plaintiff and his group in exhibit KOA4 has nothing to do with journalism. It was a scheme for grabbing power by the back door and satisfying plaintiff’s insatiable taste for power, publicity, fame, awards, and rewards. Since the president is an embodiment of the soul of the nation, any unwarranted plot out of nothing to entrap him to destroy his reputation and undermine his authority is reproachable

"The attacks of defendant on plaintiff on that ground deserves commendation and not condemnation [page 61]. I hold in respect of exhibits KOA3 and KOA4, that any statements based on them were justified and passed the test of fair comment. In the result, the court finds established the defence of justification and fair comment in relation to the statements of defendant based on exhibits KOA1, KOA2, KOA3 and KOA4. Since those statements were justified, they could not have actually defamed the plaintiff [pages 62].”

One can safely conclude based on these two cases that Anas Aremeyaw Anas’s modus
operandi is neither that of a journalist nor a lawyer. Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI are nothing but “a scheme for grabbing power by the back door and satisfying plaintiff’s insatiable taste for power, publicity, fame, awards, and rewards.” This is precisely what Anas Aremeyaw Anas tried to do against Adolph Adjei with the ‘erected a sign post on the land with the inscription “TIGER EYE, KEEP OFF”’ and in the same breath “When an application was brought to join “TIGER EYE PI” to this suit, he resisted claiming the said entity has no interest in the land” as the Court found.

Republic versus Kwesi Nyantakyi - May 18, 2023

The behaviour of Anas Aremeyaw Anas in the case of the Republic v Kwesi Nyantakyi also demonstrates the sense of superiority and entitlement he thinks he has acquired as an anti- corruption entrepreneur and a covert government agent that permits him to be unequal before the Constitution and laws of Ghana. The Supreme Court in a certiorari application quashed the ruling of the High Court permitting Anas Aremeyaw Anas to give evidence for the prosecution while masked and hiding his true identity from the accused persons and their lawyers.

The basic principle of law which Anas as the founding partner with William Kissi
Agyebeng of Cromwell Gray LLP know all too well is that the accused must confront his accuser at a public trial.

As a result of the ruling of the Supreme Court in the certiorari application, the High Court decided on a further application by the Republic to use its discretion to allow the accused and his lawyers to meet and physically see the face and identify the voice of the prosecution’s witness who happens to be Anas Aremeyaw Anas in the judge’s chambers before he gives his evidence and is cross-examined masked in open court to satisfy the requirements of a fair public trial with the accused confronting his accuser.

After all, anybody could be masked and presented at the trial as the prosecution witness claiming to be Anas Aremeyaw Anas with the accused having no means of knowing the true physical face or voice identity of the witness.

Because Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI had previously been groomed by state institutions as lords whose bidding the state institutions will do, Anas and his cohorts were shocked that a Court of law was applying the Constitution and the rules of Court to ensure that the accused and their lawyers are certain that the masked prosecution witness with the voice they are hearing and examining in open court is indeed the person and voice of the prosecution witness called Anas Aremeyaw Anas.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI were entitled to refuse to testify in the case since the trial is not an exercise involving servitude, but of persons voluntarily assisting the court by giving evidence for the attainment of justice. Cromwell Gray LLP, Tiger Eye PI and Anas Aremeyaw Anas know that the law will rather have nine guilty persons go free than one innocent person to be convicted to satisfy an anti-corruption entrepreneur who has no respect
for the law and considers himself above it.

The arrogance contained in the following statement issued by Tiger Eye PI on behalf of Anas Aremeyaw Anas is palpable and shows what political collusion and collaboration with an entity which started off as an unregistered and unlawful entity existing only on a webpage can do to the respect for the judicial process
of a country:

“Anas’s request for the protection of his identity stems from his role as an undercover agent and the real and elevated risk that revealing his identity to the accused person will severely compromise his physical security and personal safety.

"As much as Anas is willing and ready to testify for the prosecution, doing so under the condition specified by the court, presents a clear and present danger to his security and safety, especially because of the issues chronicled above.

"Under these circumstances, prudence requires that he declines the invitation to endanger his life and accordingly declines the invitation to reveal his identity to the accused person in the judges’ chamber or any other place.”

Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Tiger Eye PI have fed fat on the unlawful liberties extended to them in the past by the Ghana Police and other state institutions such that he, a journalist and a lawyer, can cause Tiger Eye PI to tell the Supreme Court of Ghana and the High Court that they must be at the beck and call of Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Tiger Eye PI, do what Anas says even when the court determines that the protection of his identity and the integrity of the
prosecutorial process is better served by him presenting himself to his accusers in chambers instead of to the public in open Court.

The Supreme Court and the High Court could not have been unmindful of and made their determinations without weighing the dangers pointed out by Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI against the constitutional requirements of a fair trial when the decisions of the Courts were made.

A journalist and/or a lawyer is expected to act with due diffidence to the Constitution, the laws and respect for the Courts of Ghana that is why the following statements by Tiger Eye PI insinuating political motives to the very court which had earlier upheld his application and been overruled by the Supreme Court smacks of a deliberate effort to bring the reputation and integrity of the court into opprobrium:

“Tiger Eye’s position is further buttressed by the unrelenting, coordinated, and well- financed media and other campaigns by private and State actors to undermine its operations and the Anas principle, which stand in their way of amassing corruption and social injustice.

Nevertheless, Tiger Eye shall remain unwavering and relentless in its fight against corruption and societal ills. Anas remains in high spirit and is grateful to the good people of Ghana for their support and protection.

By tagging the above statements to Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ voluntary decision not to assist the prosecution in presenting evidence in his possession at the trial, Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Tiger Eye PI were clearly making insinuations at the integrity of the judicial process.

Certainly, the Courts are state actors and their decision cannot be said to deliberately made to undermine the operations of Tiger Eye PI and the so-called Anas principle which is criminal behaviour disguised as anti-corruption crusading.

The attitude of Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI in the above statement vindicates the finding by Mr. Justice Eric Baah, JA, when he said in Anas Aremeyaw Anas v Kennedy Agyapong that: “In all honesty, the plot by plaintiff and his group in exhibit KOA4 has nothing to do with journalism. It was a scheme for grabbing power by the back door and satisfying plaintiff’s insatiable taste for power, publicity, fame, awards, and rewards.”

The alert citizen will recall that in or around January or February 2010 Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his colleague tried to bribe and corrupt one Daniel Ibrahim Bepoh to allow them to smuggle cocoa to the Ivory Coast. Mr. Bepoh arrested them and handed them over to the Ghana Police for investigation and prosecution. The Ghana Police Service set Anas free apparently on the grounds that he was acting covertly as a state agent for and on behalf of the Cocoa Board.

The Cocoa Board, and other state institutions, including the Ghana Police Service had no constitutional authority to use undercover agents against citizens of Ghana by entrapping them for purposes of prosecuting them. There was, therefore, no constitutional and legal reason for not prosecuting Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his colleague for bribery and corruption in Bepoh’s complaint unless Tiger Eye PI, that existed only on a webpage was a covert state agency which the law proscribed.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Tiger Eye PI took advantage of the complicity of unrelenting, coordinated, and well-financed media and other campaigns by private and State actors to promote its unlawful operations and the unconstitutional Anas principle in 2010, but today they see everything wrong with courts of
law protecting the human rights and freedoms of the citizens against unjust encroachments by them.

Conclusion

The second High Court judgment this year in Adjei v Anas confirms that Anas Aremeyaw Anas is and has always been a criminally oriented person operating under the subterfuge of an anti-corruption crusader. It has been demonstrated hereinbefore that the fact that Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the true personification of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the Ghanaian and international anti-corruption scamming scene, “....entered the land and erected a sign post on the land with the inscription “TIGER EYE, KEEP OFF”, but ‘When an application was brought to join “TIGER EYE PI” to this suit, he resisted claiming the said entity has no
interest in the land’ confirms the true dubious character and person of an anti-corruption entrepreneur whose sole object in presenting himself as an anti-corruption crusader is to use that popular rhetorical description to line his pockets with gold and silver.

One can safely conclude based on these two cases of Adjei v Anas, and Anas v Agyapong that Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ modus operandi is neither that of a journalist nor a lawyer. Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI are nothing but “a scheme for grabbing power by the back door and satisfying plaintiff’s insatiable taste for power, publicity, fame, awards, and rewards.”

The behaviour of Anas Aremeyaw Anas in the case of the Republic v Kwesi Nyantakyi also demonstrates the sense of superiority and entitlement he thinks he has acquired as an anti- corruption entrepreneur and a covert government agent that permits him to be unequal before the Constitution and laws of Ghana. A journalist and/or a lawyer is expected to act with due diffidence to the Constitution, the laws, and respect for the Courts of Ghana that is why the
statements by Tiger Eye PI insinuating political motives to the very Court which had earlier upheld his application and been overruled by the Supreme Court smacks of a deliberate effort to bring the reputation and integrity of the court into opprobrium.

“Every day for thief man one day for master”, so the saying goes. The Courts have spoken and exposed the true Anas Aremeyaw Anas. The chickens have at long last come home to roost and to vindicate the contention of this writer since 2014 that Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI are nothing but a scamming entity on the anti-corruption land scape of Ghana parading as anti-corruption crusaders.