A private legal practitioner, Samson Lardy Anyenini, says Citi News‘ Caleb Kudah committed no crime by filming at the car park of the National Security Ministry.
Samson Lardy Ayenini on Eyewitness News on Wednesday said “we have a duty to protect and preserve public property, and to combat misuse and waste. So if journalists will take their cameras, or pens and capture what you are misusing or wasting, they are simply conducting their duty.”
“If you are a journalist or not, and there is something going on in the public place, you are entitled to capture and reflect the same thing to the rest of us,” he argued.
National Security operatives arrested Caleb Kudah on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, for filming abandoned vehicles procured by MASLOC that had been parked at the Ministry for several years now.
The operatives subsequently raided Citi FM in an attempt to arrest Mrs. Zoe Abu-Baidoo Addo, who Caleb had sent some of the files he captured at the Ministry electronically.
But the management of Citi FM/Citi TV prevented the operatives from capturing Zoe.
They subsequently escorted her to the National Security Ministry where she was interrogated and allowed to go.
Mr. Kudah was also released later in the evening on Tuesday.
Mr. Kudah on The Point of View on Citi TV on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, revealed how he was physically assaulted by the National Security operatives who arrested him.
“They seized my phone and pushed me and I sat on the chair. They [National Security operatives] slapped me from the back. I was trying to appeal to them that they had beaten me enough, but they were just slapping me from the back. I’ll be talking to another one and someone will just come and slap me from the back.”
He said one of the security operatives even kicked him in his groin.
Lambasting the National Security over the issue, Mr. Lardy Ayenini insisted that the action the security operatives took against Kudah is “unlawful.”
“The law says when arresting someone, you have to inform the person on why they are being arrested. It’s not about picking up the person in that style that they did and detaining them.”
“You can’t be arrested unless the person making the arrest tells you why you are being arrested in a language that you can understand. The constitution says in Article 19(11) that no person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless it’s defined.”
“What is the offence read out to Caleb and Zoe? What were they told?” he queried.
According to him, the police have no right to “access the materials [of individuals] when arrested.”
“The constitution provides in Article 18(2), that the privacy of a suspect’s conversation is protected except where he is in an act that is criminal or endangers health. Some get intimidated and give out their password, but they [the police] are not entitled to break into it. When they do that they are infringing on the laws,” he indicated.
