EX-NACOB OFFICIAL TO TESTIFY IN COCAINE TRIAL

ATTENTION at the cocaine trial involving Alhaji Issa Abass and Kwabena Amaning, alias Tagor, has shifted to the whereabouts of a key defence witness, Mr Ben Ndego, who is also an official of the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB), and a potential witness called Konu.
Following futile attempts to serve a personal subpoena on Mr Ndego, the Accra Fast Track High Court hearing the trial ordered the subpoena to be posted on the witness’s house at Kasoa, on the notice boards of the court and in the Daily Graphic.
But in the case of Konu, whom Alhaji Abass mentioned as a witness who had been picked by the police, the Tema Regional Crime Officer of the Ghana Police Service was in court to explain that the man they were holding is Gonu, aka Kingsley Manteaw, who was being held in connection with the murder of Nii Kwatei Quartey.
According to the court, the posting of Ndego’s subpoena shall remain in force for seven days and after that if Mr Ndego had not made himself available to the court, appropriate measures would be taken as would be requested by the defence counsel.
Mr Justice Jones Dotse, a Court of Appeal Judge, sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court Judge, gave the directive after the court’s registrar had informed the court about the fruitless effort to get Mr Ndego to be served with the subpoena.
The court registrar told the court that on August 13, 2007, when servers went to the house, they did not meet Mr Ndego; rather they met a man in the house and posted the service on the house and took some photographs.
Mr Ndego is being invited at the instance of Alhaji Abass, who told the court during his evidence-in-chief that the NACOB official instructed him to record the conversation that took place in the house of ACP Kofi Boakye, which has become the subject of the trial.
Alhaji Abass is facing two counts of conspiracy and supply of narcotic drugs, while Tagor faces four counts of conspiracy, engaging in prohibited business related to narcotic drugs, buying of narcotic drugs and supplying narcotic drugs.
They have both pleaded not guilty to all the counts and have been refused bail by the court.
Later, a driver called Nana Yaw (not real name) appeared before the court to testify as a defence witness for Alhaji Abass.
Led in evidence by Mr Mohammed Atta, counsel for Alhaji Abass, the witness said he knew the accused person but did not know Tagor.
The witness said that he was at home sometime last year when Alhaji Abass called him to his office, where he met some CID personnel, who discussed with him how he could assist them to arrest Killer and Sheriff Asem Dakeh, alias The Limping Man.
He named the CID personnel to include Inspector Charles Adabah, whom he identified in the court, Inspector Justice Nana Oppong, Alhaji and Sulley.
The witness narrated how he and Konu led the police to the house of Killer and how the police allegedly allowed Sheriff to abscond when he was trailed to a funeral at Big Ada.
Nana Yaw claimed that the police even gave them three mobile phones to facilitate communication between them and also offered to give them ¢40 million as reward but they were given only ¢2 million.
He said when the police went to the house of Killer, they did not meet him but they managed to get some photographs of him.
According to him, he later heard that Sheriff was attending a funeral at Big Ada and, therefore, informed the police about it and he, together with Konu, led them to the place.
He said before they arrived at the funeral grounds, the police team placed themselves at vantage points while he went to look for Sheriff.
“I saw Sheriff’s wife first and a macho man. Not quite, I saw Sheriff in a black suit spotting a hair cut and immediately he saw me, he headed for his car”, the witness said through an Akan interpreter.
He said that he left to inform the police that Sheriff was about to move away in a Toyota Land Cruiser with tinted glasses.
Nana Yaw said they all left the place in order to arrest Sheriff and while going Konu’s VW Golf developed an electrical fault so he stopped his motorbike to assist him.
He said when they opened the bonnet of the car, Sheriff came to pass at top speed and the police remarked that if they knew that they would have informed a nearby police barrier about the car’s registration number.
The witness said all the same the police gave Sheriff a chase and when he and Konu got to the motorway end of the road they saw the police car and they were informed by the policemen that they did not see Sheriff in his car but rather his wife and brother.
“I insisted that Sheriff was in the Land Cruiser”, he stated and added that the police gave him ¢100,000 to buy fuel.
According to him, he did not want to involve himself in the matter but for the ¢40 million reward promised him because every now and then he received telephone calls in which the callers threatened his life.
During cross-examination by Ms Gertrude Aikins, the Acting Director of Public Prosecutions, the witness said he did not know anything about the conversation that took place in ACP Boakye’s house.
He disagreed that Inspector Adabah could not have been part of the team that embarked on the operation to Big Ada because he was stationed at the Police Headquarters while those who went on the operation were from the Accra Regional Police.
“I am able to identify him (Inspector Adabah) because of the way he dresses,” the witness said.
According to the sequence of events as recorded in the diary of action, the police went to Big Ada but on reaching there, they realised that the funeral was being held at Kasei, where they proceeded to only to be informed that Sheriff left about 10 or 15 minutes earlier.
On Abass’s other witness, Chief Superintendent Joshua Tetteh Dogbeda, denied that the police had in their custody a man called Konu as was being claimed by the suspect.
He said it was rather Gonu, who was arrested in Accra with other suspects and brought to Tema in connection of the murder of Nii Quartey.
That was after counsel for Alhaji Issa Abass had informed the court that his client’s witnesses were scared of testifying because one of them had been arrested.
Following that explanation, the court said that it did not know whether Alhaji Abbas did not pronounce Gonu well or not and if he appeared to be the same identity, then he was in lawful custody.
Alhaji Abass, in his evidence-in-chief on July 24, 2007 , told the court that Konu was a potential witness in the case but he was arrested after he had informed the court in his (Abass’s) evidence that Konu and another potential witness, Nana Yaw, were present when the police allowed Sheriff Asem Dakeh, the importer of the 77 parcels of cocaine, to abscond.