Solomon Asamoah and Prof. Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi
The trial of former Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), Solomon Asamoah and former Board Chairman of the Fund, Prof. Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, is set to resume on October 19, following the decision of the Supreme Court (SC) to dismiss a challenge against the order on the accused to open their defence.
A five-member panel of the apex court, presided over by Justice Gabriel Pwamang, yesterday dismissed an application for certiorari and prohibition filed by Mr. Asamoah which sought to strike out the High Court’s order on the accused to mount a defence.
The two are standing trial for allegedly causing $2 million financial loss to the state by investing it in the Sky Train project.
They have each been charged with three offences, including one count of conspiracy to commit crime, causing financial loss to the state and intentional dissipation of public fund.
Lawyers for Mr. Asamoah had argued that the trial judge, Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay, made prejudicial statements in the ruling on a submission of no case to answer, comments she should not have made at that stage of the trial.
Moving the motion yesterday, Prince Asafo Agyei contended that the trial judge’s indication that “the applicant (Mr. Asamoah) is the direct cause of the loss” goes beyond what the judge is supposed to determine at the stage of submission of no case.
This, he argued, is prejudicial to any defence the accused is going to mount, pointing out that the judge exceeded her jurisdiction when she made those definite findings that went outside the scope of her powers at that stage.
Mr. Agyei further argued that the trial judge, in determining an application for stay of proceedings filed by Mr. Asamoah, decided to vary the terms of his bail condition, without giving him an opportunity to have any input in the decision.
“The applicant was not given notice and was not heard in the matter. There was no application for variation of bail before the court,” he said.
He added that the cumulative effect of the definitive findings made by the court, the variation of bail conditions and the off-record proceedings is that a reasonable objective mind will reach the conclusion that Mr. Asamoah will not receive an impartial hearing of his defence.
Opposition
The application was opposed by the Deputy Attorney General, who argued that the claim of the judge exceeding jurisdiction is not founded at all, noting that the allegation is “based on a misapprehension of what the element of the offence is.”
On the issue of the judge varying the bail terms, he said the court had initially changed the bail terms because of the pendency of the trial and simply varied it to the old terms because of the pending legal vacation.
He said the allegations made by the lawyer for the accused did not meet the threshold of likelihood of bias espoused by the Supreme Court in multiple cases.
The panel, Gabriel Pwamang (presiding), Samuel Asiedu, Hafisata Amaleboba, Justice Sophia Rosetta Bernasko-Essah and Anthony Forson Jnr., in a ruling, refused the application.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak