NAM1
The Economic and Financial Court in Accra has told embattled businessman, Nana Appiah Mensah alias NAM1 that it will never again adjourn his trial as a result of his lawyer not showing up in court.
NAM1, who together with two of his companies have been charged for fraud and other financial crimes, told the court last Friday that his counsel had an emergency and had requested the court to adjourn the case.
NAM1, Menzgold and Brew Marketing Consult have been charged for fraudulent activities that saw thousands of people lose over a billion Ghana Cedis they invested in his company.
The three have been charged with 39 counts of defrauding by false pretence, inducing members of the public to invest a total of GH₵1,680,920,000 in the company by claiming that the company was registered to take gold deposits in return for profits, a statement which was misleading.
“I just had word from his office that he had an emergency and prays the court to grant him a short adjournment,” NAM1 told the court when he was asked about his lawyer’s whereabouts.
Justice Ernest Owusu-Dapaah, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as an additional High Court judge, who was not impressed by the response further asked NAM1 whether he knew what the emergency was.
“He did not assign any reason, he just said he had an emergency,” NAM1 told the court.
“This is going to be the last time we are going to adjourn because your lawyer is not here. There are three accused persons and your lawyer does not practice alone. He can send other lawyers if he is not available. We need to deal with this case expeditiously so that when you are guilty you know, when you are not guilty you know,” Justice Owusu-Dapaah warned.
The warning was however, overshadowed by the fact that the prosecution was yet to file its witness statements and disclosures as ordered by the court on September 19, 2023.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, told the court that they were yet to file their witness statements although they are almost ready.
She said the prosecution was waiting for a few of the witnesses to sign their statements, and that was why they were yet to file them, indicating that some of them were not responding to calls.
“Even though they have given their statements, they are not responding to calls. The option would be that we file those that have been signed but we thought that we get them to sign so that we file all at once,” Mrs. Obuobisa told the court.
She, however, indicated that they were hoping to get all the witnesses to sign the statements within the next two weeks.
The court subsequently adjourned the case to November 17 for continuation.
Trial
The three have been charged with a total of thirty-nine counts – one count of selling gold without licence, one count of operating deposit-taking business, one count of inducement to invest, 22 counts of defrauding by false pretence, seven counts of fraudulent breach of trust, and seven counts of money laundering.
The allegations levelled against them relates to them defrauding their customers various sums of monies ranging between GH¢20 million and GH¢243 million between 2016 and 2018.
NAM1, his company and wife were standing trial at the Circuit Court in Accra on a charge sheet filed in 2019, but the case had to be adjourned countless times due to the case docket being sent to the Office of the Attorney General for study and advice.
Court documents indicate that NAM1, Menzgold and Brew Consult between 2016 and 2018 dishonestly appropriated a total of GH¢105,890,811 of depositors’ money to Zylofon Media, a company related to NAM1.
The documents also state that the NAM1 and Menzgold between October 2017 and July 2018 dishonestly appropriated a total of GH¢132,142,141.3 million which was entrusted to them on behalf of Menzgold for the benefit of its depositors by causing the money to be transferred to NAM1.
The charge sheet also adds that GH¢66 million of depositors’ funds invested in Menzgold was transferred to Abigail Mensah between July 2018 and August 2018 for the benefit of NAM1 and his companies.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak