Gyakye QuaysonÂ
A High Court in Accra has set March 3, 2025, to decide whether or not the Office of the Attorney General has made a sufficient case against the Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson, who is standing trial for forgery among others, to mount a defence.
This was after the prosecution closed its case, having called six (6) witnesses in a bid to establish the guilt of the MP who is accused of deceit in the process of acquiring a Ghanaian passport.
Mr. Quayson has been charged with five counts of deceit of public officer, forgery of passport or travel certificate, knowingly making a false statutory statement, perjury and false declaration of office.
The offences relate to the MP’s activities in the run up to the 2020 parliamentary election, where he allegedly acquired a Ghanaian passport without renouncing his Canadian citizenship as well as making a statutory declaration on his nomination form that he owed allegiance to no country other than Ghana.
The prosecution had recalled its fifth witness yesterday to tender in the original and the full compliments of certain documents but was unable to do so because the documents were yet to be made available by the Passport Office and the Electoral Commission.
He, however, tendered in evidence the Parliamentary Nomination of the MP and was briefly cross-examined by Tsatsu Tsikata, counsel for the accused.
The witness insisted that the MP, at the time he was filing his nomination, had both Ghanaian and Canadian citizenship.
“I say so because a copy his Canadian passport which came to my custody during investigation was authenticated by the Canadian High Commission in Ghana,” he added.
Esi Dentaa Yankah, a Principal State Attorney, after the witness was discharged, told the court the prosecution was closing its case.
Justice Mary Yanzuh, the trial judge, therefore, directed both the accused and the prosecution to file the submission of no case and a response to same simultaneously within two weeks.
The court adjourned the case to March 3, 2025, to rule on whether the embattled MP needs to mount a defence.
Meanwhile, the prosecution says it will still take steps to furnish the accused person with certain documents he requested during the prosecution’s case.
Madam Yankah told the court that “with respect to the disclosure of further documents, we keep in mind that the duty to disclose is ongoing and continues, and we are making efforts to obtain those originals and make them available once received, regardless of the close of our case.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak