allAfrica.com: Ghana: Cocaine C'tee Nails Judge After Months of Investigations (Page 1 of 2)

The Kojo Armah led Committee that investigated the missing cocaine from the exhibition room of the police has faulted Justice Anthony K. Abada, for granting bail to a prime suspect, Kenneth Ugah who was arrested for carting 67 cartons of cocaine from Prampram.

According to the committee's report, they found the Judge's decision to grant bail to the suspect, who is currently at large, on the grounds that the charge against him was an allegation of conspiracy to commit crime and for being in possession of 67 parcels of whitish substance believed to be cocaine, misplaced.

The committee said they had sighted in one of the newspapers that Justice Abada claimed he was tricked to grant bail to the Nigerian, but when the panel made an effort through the Judicial Secretary to interview the judge on this matter, the judge informed them he was travelling out of the country.

"In view of the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Act 714 which prohibits the granting of bail to narcotics suspects, Justice Abada's decision appears misplaced," it reiterated.

Commenting on Ugah's arrest, trial and bail, the committee observed that he was arrested on May 21, 2006, by policemen from Old Ningo, and subsequently taken to Prampram District Police Headquarters where he confessed that there were cartons of cocaine among the cartons of fish.

The case was transferred to Tema Police from where the Organised Crime Unit of CID took over. The committee added that Ugah's arrest was heralded by an attempted bribery action, an amount of $10,000 was taken as exhibit but the real culprit escaped. Also, some $6,100 of the amount which was kept in a Toyota Avensis car was reported to be counterfeit.

Keneth Ugah's first appearance at a Circuit Court on a holding charge of possessing Narcotics Drugs without lawful authority contrary to section 3 of the PNDC law 236/90, was on May 24, 2006, and thereafter he appeared 11 times while on prison remand.

The committee indicated that in a letter dated March 14, last year, and addressed to the Officer in charge of James Fort Prison, Accra, counsel for Ugah stated that his client was seriously ill and needed urgent medical attention, stressing that the state of the health of Ugah was the subject matter of his supplementary affidavit to the High Court dated April 24, 2007.

On May 9, last year, based on the High Court order, Ugah was taken from James Fort Prison to the CID/Headquarters and thereafter sent to the Police Hospital on May 10, last year, by Detective Inspector Paul Brenya Bediako and others where he complained to the medical doctor, Dr. John Taylor that his intestines were rotten.

Dr. Taylor examined Ugah and found nothing wrong with him as a result of which the medical doctor prescribed 'Matracilicate' for the suspect because he had complained that he had not eaten anything for a day. Dr.Taylor has stated that Ugah was only malingering. Ugah was later granted bail after over a month.

The Committee noted that the attempted bribery of the arresting officers by Ugah's agent and the nature of fake and good U.S dollar bills were early signs of what would come if proper and quick steps were not taken to decide on Keneth Ugah's fate.

It stated that it was also unusual for Ugah to have been kept in police cells for such a long time when he had been put on prison remand noting that arrangements should have been made to send Ugah back to James Fort Prison latest May 12, last year.

The panel maintained that Justice Abada should have apprised himself of the law and the charge sheet in respect of Ugah before granting the bail and recommended investigations into the matter.

The Committee questioned the professionalism of the lead investigator in the case, Chief Inspector Bediako in the handling of the docket on the case.

It noted that the handling of the case was haphazardly done with entries in various books and not sequential. Again, his brief facts to the Attorney General based upon which Ugah was provisionally charged for court did not disclose all the vital information on the case.

The report emphasized that C/Insp Bediako also failed to return suspect Ugah to prison custody where he was supposed to be but rather kept him in police custody for one month until he was granted bail. The panel recommended service inquiry into his conduct and appropriate sanctions meted out to him.

It commended the Ningo police personnel including, G/Sgt. Martin Opoku Darko, Cpl Emmanuel Adaba, the late G/Cpl. Nicholas Adotsuklu, G/Cpl. Nsobila Nyaaba and GC/2 J.K. Appiah who affected the arrest of Ugah and escorted the vehicle he was driving to the Prampram police station for necessary action.

They recommended an award for them as an incentive for such efforts in the future.

The report lamented that from June last year till now, no action seems to have been taken against the surety of Ugah, who was one Frank Woode, adding that it would not be far fetched to infer that the attempted bribery case was a sign of bad things to come and that the bail granted to Ugah was the last straw.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories