Akrasi Sarpong
An Accra high court yesterday convicted Akrasi Sarpong, a former Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), for contempt.
The court, presided over by Justice Charles Edward Ekow Baiden, found the immediate-past boss of the anti-drug agency guilty following his comments in a case before a high court.
Mr. Sarpong had in the June 20, 2016 edition of Daily Graphic chided a high court for granting bail to one Chief Sunny Ikechukwu Benjy Eke, 53, a businessman, and his alleged accomplice, James Eleke Chukwu, 47, a second-hand clothes dealer in Accra.
The applicant, Chief Eke, was arrested and remanded in prison custody in 2013 for allegedly attempting to smuggle 281,604 grammes of liquid cocaine with a street value of over $12.5 million into the country.
The drug was allegedly concealed in a 40-footer container filled with 1,946 boxes of shampoo imported from Bolivia in South America, to Ghana.
But Mr. Sarpong, unsatisfied with the bail, is reported to have said that the terms for the bail were unfortunate because Chief Eke was known to have jumped bail in Brazil.
This compelled the applicants to drag the former NACOB boss before the court for contempt.
Justice Baiden in a ruling, said that Mr. Sarpong’s comment was meant to derogate the authority of the court that granted bail to the suspects.
He said the comment was wrong and unacceptable and accordingly sentenced Mr. Sarpong to sign a bond to be of good behaviour or in default, serve two months in prison with hard labour.
The second contemnor, the Daily Graphic journalist who published the said comment, was also convicted to a fine of GH¢5,000 or in default serve two months in prison.
Mr. Sarpong alleged that all international drug agencies were hunting for Chief Eke but could not arrest him until he was nabbed in Ghana.
He argued that the judge, in using his discretion as required by law, should have considered the past record of the suspect, which he said was public knowledge.
The ex-NACOB boss said the fight against transnational organised crime is not for the security agencies alone, but the whole justice delivery system in the country.
He warned that if the suspect escaped, nobody should blame NACOB because the board would use meagre state resources to monitor him (the suspect) as “he walks free on the streets of Accra, a situation which he could take advantage of to escape again.”
He said while the judiciary upheld the 1992 Constitution and the rule of law, there was the need to understand that the characters involved in transnational organised crime, such as Chief Eke, could undermine democracy, promote impunity of the private sector against the public sector, engender corruption both in the public and the private sectors, as well as give cause for the rise of fake and wrong role models.
“For NACOB, the condition under which the accused was granted bail was not the best, judging from his past record of jumping bail. Besides, we are aware that the wheel of justice is a slow process, but no matter how slow it is, justice is more likely to prevail than injustice,” Mr Akrasi Sarpong underscored.
However, lawyers for the suspects urged the court to convict the NACOB boss for contempt.
In their affidavit in support of the motion for contempt, they stated among other things that the comments made and published in the Daily Graphic edition of June 20, 2016 were prejudicial and could affect justice delivery in the case.
By Jeffery De-Graft Johnson
jeffdegraft44@yahoo.com