Friday, August 07, 2009

Court of Appeal frees cocaine barons after 20 months in jail, A-G to go to Supreme Court

THE Court of Appeal yesterday acquitted and discharged Kwabena Amaning, alias Tagor, and Alhaji Issah Abass after they had spent almost 20 months in prison for an alleged narcotic related offence.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice E.K. Piesare, set aside the November 27, 2007 conviction by the Accra Fast Track High Court of 15 years’ imprisonment each with hard labour.
Other members of the panel were Mr Justice Yaw Apau and Mr Justice E.A. Addo.
The appellants were on November 27, 2007 convicted and sentenced when the court, presided over by Mr Justice Jones Victor Dotse, then a Court of Appeal judge with additional responsibility as a High Court judge, found them guilty on charges of conspiracy and engaging in prohibited business related to narcotics without authority.
That was after the Georgina Wood Committee set up to investigate an alleged 76 parcels of cocaine missing on board the MV Benjamin at the Tema Port had recommended the trial of the appellants.
In its unanimous decision, the court ordered the immediate release of the two, saying the conviction and the sentence were flawed and against the weight of Criminal Law.
The court described the lower court’s decision as a nullity and a cancerous tumour in the country’s legal anatomy which needed to be flushed out of the system.
According to the court, the charges, together with the accompanying particulars, were defective and deficient, while the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case against the appellants.
The court was of the opinion that the trial judge erred in the first place by calling on the appellants to open their defence after the prosecution had closed its case when, in fact, there was nothing which had incriminated them for them to have been called upon to open their defence.
It said the court’s reliance on a recorded conversation which took place in ACP Kofi Boakye’s house was wrong in law, since that could not be termed as an admission of guilt or a confession statement.
“A confession statement is sufficient to sustain a conviction when it is direct and positive,” it held, and added that in the instant case there was no evidence that the appellants conspired to look for the missing 76 parcels of cocaine which was on board the MV Benjamin.
The court held that what was done by ACP Boakye was in pursuant of his duty as a top police boss in his anxiety to clear his name regarding rumours that linked him to the missing cocaine, although he was a material witness whom the prosecution failed to call to testify.
“ACP Boakye was worried because of information that Tagor and Alhaji Abass had been spreading rumours that he went to Tema and stole the cocaine from the vessel,” the court held, and added that the police officer was not a participant in the alleged confession statement but rather he was desperate and needed help to save his name.
The court maintained that the purpose of the said meeting was not for the appellants to go and look for the missing cocaine and reap the benefits there from but it was called by ACP Boakye in his anxiety to trace the whereabouts of the cocaine so that he could save his name.
ACP Boakye, the court affirmed, was the only person who could have assisted the court concerning all the details about what actually transpired at the meeting in his house, arguing that failure to call him meant there was no evidence for which he could, for instance, be charged.
The court lambasted the prosecution witnesses whom it described as having been in court to show their academic credentials because their evidence did not in any way assist the court.
It stated that it was wrong for the judge to have literally accepted the appellants’ reference to “niema” in Twi to mean ‘cocaine’ because it was not correct that the police investigator who, in his testimony, had claimed that he had gone to the underworld of the drug business had actually done so.
It said that the best person who could have testified to that was the one who was living in the underworld and not the police investigator.
The court said the offences for which the appellants were convicted were never stated, neither was the place and time stated.
“Failing to fill the gap was fatal to the case of the prosecution. The charge was mainly based on an admission of the appellants,” the court held, and wondered where in Accra and in which period of the month of May 2006 had the offence n place and also the nature of the offence.
It noted that those were issues that could have been answered by the prosecution but the trial judge glossed over them and erroneously called the appellants to open their defence.
The court likened the case to two scenarios, namely, murder and rape, in which people went around bragging that they had either killed someone or raped somebody when there was no evidence to that effect.
According to the court, under such circumstances, investigations ought to be conducted to verify the statement and those investigation should establish that, indeed, someone had been killed or raped.
In respect of the appellants, the court averred that investigations did not list out their involvement in any prior act, while the said statement was not made on any authority to warrant it being called a confession statement.
It said there was no evidence to the effect that 76 parcels of cocaine had been missing which the appellants decided to look for, except that there were rumours in the country to that effect, which called for the setting up of a committee which also could not establish its whereabouts.
At exactly 1:13 p.m. when it became obvious that the judgement had gone in his favour, Tagor screwed his neck from the box and looked in the direction of his wife who was seated in the gallery.
Lead counsel for Tagor, Dr Dominic Ayine, said of the judgement, “The three-hour wait was worth its while,” while the prosecution said it was going to study it to see the next course of action.
The other defence lawyers included Mr Kissi Adjabeng and Mr Osafo Buaben.
Sympathisers and relatives who thronged the court premises shed tears of joy and were lost for words when contacted for their comments.


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