Francis Xavier-Sosu, the member of parliament for the Madina Constituency, is seeking an apology and an urgent retraction from a media organization that said that the American government had given asylum to his spouse and four children.
According to the MP, the Thursday, March 23, 2023, publication by Mynews.com.gh with the headline “Madina MP’s Wife and 4 Children Granted US Government Visa Asylum Over Anti LGBTQI Threats,” is not only untrue but maliciously targeted at his reputation.
The MP through his lawyers, FX Law & Associates has thus demanded an immediate deletion of the said story as well as a retraction and apology for its publication.
“In the said publication, you allege that ‘the wife and four (4) children of our client were granted asylum status by the US government following the alleged threats of harm received by the Human Rights lawyer and his family over his opposition to sections of Ghana’s Anti-Gay Bill.
“We have further instructions that the above allegation is false and publication of same is made maliciously without justification and is calculated to injure the hard-earned reputation of our client and expose him to hatred, ridicule and contempt.
“Accordingly, we have firm instructions of our client you remedy the situation immediately by pulling down the said false and malicious news story publication and causing a retraction and apology to be made within six hours on receipt of this letter and giving the retraction and apology the same publicity and prominence as the false and malicious publication made on Thursday, 23rd March 2023,” the letter from the lawyers read in part.
According to the lawyers, the have the instruction of their client to institute a five million cedis defamation suit against the media house if it fails to heed to their demand.
“We have further instructions from our client to commence legal action against you for damages of Five Million Ghana Cedis (GH₵5,000,000.00) to protect our client’s image and reputation from false and malicious publication made on your news portal should you fail to heed to the demands of our client,” the letter said.