Nana Agradaa
A private legal practitioner, Theophilus Donkor, counsel for founder of Heaven Way Champion International Ministry, Patricia Asiedua Koranteng, aka Nana Agradaa, has been arrested and dragged before an Accra Circuit Court for assaulting police officers in the discharge of their lawful duty.
Mr. Donkor, according to court documents, rained unprintable insults on police officers while they attempted to arrest Agradaa last Monday at the forecourt of the Accra Circuit Court.
He has been charged with two counts of assault on a public officer contrary to Section 205(b) of the Criminal and Other Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) and another two counts of offensive conduct conducive to the breach of the peace contrary to Section 207 of the same Act.
Agradaa was re-arrested on January 16, 2023, after she had appeared for one of her criminal trials before the Circuit Court.
Although it was not clear why she was arrested, she was captured on a video telling her followers, “I am going with them (the police) so when you go, tell them that the case with Appiah which is in court was called today, it was adjourned but they are arresting me again because of the case with Appiah,” as she was escorted into a police vehicle.
It was during this re-arrest that her lawyer allegedly assaulted the two female police officers who were performing their lawful duty.
“You are idiots, stupid police women, you did not know your left from right,” were some of the insults used by the lawyer on the two officers, court documents reveal.
He was hauled before court yesterday but his plea was not taken and the court presided over by Her Honour Rosemary Baah Tosu adjourned the case.
Meanwhile, the lawyer has filed an application challenging the jurisdiction of the court to hear his case pursuant to Section 45 of Act 30, which relates to the place of investigation and trial.
His affidavit in support of the motion avers that the Cantonments Divisional Police does not have jurisdiction to investigate the case against him as it does not fall under the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the locality under which the alleged crime took place.
He also argues that “this whole enterprise to get me charged before a court is just an attempt to reduce my popularity since my presence in cases does not allow them to do what they want to do and to get me off cases that will make me popular, according to the proponents of this agenda.”
He further avers that “the arrest of my client at the court premise is part of the grand scheme of the proponents as the offence for which she was being arrested was already before Circuit Court 10, Accra and the case was adjourned on the 11th of January, 2023 to February, 2023, and that a matter in which the same prosecutor has filed a charge sheet before the court and will order the arrest of the accused when there is no bench warrant for her arrest is clear interference with the due administration of justice.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak