TEN COPS ON COKE TRIAL

TEN policemen appeared before an Accra circuit court on charges relating to the supply of narcotic drugs, stealing narcotic drugs and abetment of crime in prohibited business relating to narcotics.
Two of the accused persons, Sergeant Francis Arthur and Lance Corporal George Akoi, were each granted bail in the sum of ¢300 million with a surety to be justified, while the rest were remanded.
The other policemen are Constable Ekow Russel of the Accra Regional Police Headquarters, Lance Corporal Isaac Annan, Lance Corporal Dominic Ameza, Constable Collins Ohemeng, Inspector Oppong Kyei, the Station Officer of the Monitors Unit of the Accra Region, and Lance Corporal Tony Adjei.
An accomplice in the first case involving the eight policemen, Maxwell Antwi, a car dealer, was also remanded to reappear with the policemen on May 29, 2007, while the two other policemen, namely, Lance Corporals Samuel Bismark Osae and Frank Acquah, will reappear on June 1, 2007.
Antwi pleaded not guilty to one count of possessing narcotic drugs without authority, while Constable Russel pleaded not guilty to one count of supplying narcotic drugs without authority.
The other policemen pleaded not guilty to abetment of crime in prohibited business relating to narcotic drugs.
In the case of Lance Corporals Osae and Acquah, their pleas were not taken. They face a count each of stealing cocaine worth $54,000.
Prosecuting, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Kofi Abraham told the court that on March 27, 2007, personnel from the Organised Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service Headquarters arrested Antwi with cocaine and, during interrogation, he mentioned Constable Russel as his source of supply.
He said on his arrest, Constable Russel admitted the offence and stated that the cocaine had been taken from certain Nigerian dealers in Tema on January 16, 2007.
Constable Russel said when the Nigerians, Sebastian Uba and Matthew Nkumado, were arrested by a team comprising the other accused persons, eight slabs of the substance were seized but only one slab was delivered to the office to make a case against the dealers.
DSP Abraham said on January 31, 2007, Uba mysteriously escaped from Constable Russel when he had been instructed to bring the Nigerian from the La Police Station to the Regional Police Headquarters.
He said Antwi was given the rest of the cocaine to sell and it was during the sale that he was arrested and the rest were also arrested.
In the case of Lance Corporals Osae and Acquah, they were said to have recorded in the diary of action that on April 15, 2007, they had gone to effect the arrest of some cocaine suspects at North Kaneshie in Accra but the suspects fled on seeing them and left behind one parcel of cocaine.
However, on April 24, 2007, information got to the CID Headquarters that on that day the policemen actually arrested Michael Tettey Tetteh in a house at Fadama, also in Accra, and collected four parcels of the cocaine.
It was established that the arrest took place at Fadama and not North Kaneshie, while the parcels collected were four and not one, as declared by the suspects.