Aisha Huang
An Accra High Court will today decide whether the prosecution has proven its case against ‘Galamsey Queen’, En Huang, popularly known as Aisha Huang, to warrant her opening her defence in a trial in which she is facing illegal mining charges.
Aisha Huang, who has already been convicted for illegally re-entering Ghana following her deportation in 2018, would be ordered by the court to open her defence if the court presided over by Justice Lydia Osei Marfo finds that the prosecution has made a prima facie case against her.
Her conviction for the immigration offence followed the decision by the accused to change her initial not guilty plea to guilty as part of a plea-bargaining agreement with the Office of the Attorney General.
She had initially pleaded not guilty to a charge of “Entering Ghana while prohibited from re-entry contrary to section 20(4) of the Immigration Act, 2000, Act 573.”
Her plea was retaken on May 3, 2023, as a result of the agreement, and she pleaded guilty and was convicted by the court on her own plea of guilty.
Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, however, deferred her sentencing until the end of her trial in which she has been charged for undertaking small-scale illegal mining at Bepotenten in the Ashanti Region.
The Office of the Attorney General on May 3, closed its case in the trial regarding the other charges after calling 11 witnesses in proving its case.
AG’s Case
The prosecution led by the Director of Public Prosecution, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, in pushing to establish the guilt of the accused, called 11 witnesses including farmers who told the court that they sold their farmlands to Aisha Huang, who had destroyed the farmlands as a result of illegal mining.
Nana Sarfo Prempeh, the prosecution’s third witness, in his evidence-in-chief, told the trial court that the accused has caused what he described as “wholesale damages” to farmers whose farms were destroyed as a result of her illegal mining activities.
He further told the court that Aisha Huang’s illegal mining activities caused damages to residents of Bepotenten, “who could not have access to clean drinking water all because of the illegal mining activities of Aisha Huang on the concession.”
Mathew Kwabla Abotsi, the Assemblyman for Bepotenten Electoral Area in the Amansie Central District, also insisted on seeing Aisha Huang at the galamsey site where she employed workers to mine illegally.
According to him, he saw the accused at a mining site which was taking place on a footpath residents used to their farms when he followed up on a complaint about her encroaching on the footpath.
ASP Charles Adaba (rtd), one of the investigators in the matter, in his testimony, also told the court that the accused had no permit to mine or undertake any mining support services in Ghana.
“The response from the Minerals Commission established that the accused person’s company did not have any licence or authorisation from the Minerals Commission to undertake any small-scale mining operation or to even render mine support service to any person or group,” the retired officer told the court.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak