Vincent Aikins
A lawyer for two of the accused persons standing trial for allegedly robbing Akua Donkor, founder of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), has accused a witness in the case of lying to the court.
According to Vincent Aikins, Sergeant Yesulorn Atsutse’s testimony was inconsistent with that of the complainant, Akua Donkor.
The senior lawyer indicated before an Accra circuit court yesterday under further cross-examination of the witness that the third prosecution witness had ‘framed up’ his evidence to mislead the court.
He said, “He has concocted his evidence and perfumed it to give sweet fragrance to this honourable Court.”
The accused persons are Yakubu Yusif, trader/Central Regional Chairman of the GFP; Abdul Razak Shaibu, a member of the GPRTU task force; Barnabas Kayase, driver/secretary of the party and Opoku Agyemang,
At yesterday’s sitting, Yesulorn, who is also an officer attached to the Odorkor Motorbike Patrol Team, refuted the claim, insisting that he was being truthful to the court.
He said at the scene of the crime he saw the vehicle of Akua with the driver sitting in the said car.
Yesulorn stated that he demanded the key of the vehicle but the driver refused to hand it over to him.
In the view of Mr. Aikins, the driver was right, indicating that the police officer also failed to show the driver his identity card as a police officer.
Mr. Aikins stated that the driver also did not give the key of the vehicle to Yesulorn because there had been instances where serving police officers in uniforms had been reported of embarking on robbery expeditions.
Opoku Agyemang and Abdul Razak Shaibu variously took their turn to grill the police officer, each punching holes in the testimony of the officer, linking them to the case.
Sitting continues today.
The prosecution said the accused persons, at about 2:30 am at Sowutuom, a suburb of Accra on December 30, 2016, and at Taifa in Accra, conspired to rob the GFP 2016 flag bearer at gunpoint and snatched her travelling bag containing plane ticket, Ghanaian passport, voter ID card, $30,000 and GH¢3,000.
Two other alleged accomplices – Joe and Nuamah aka Lion – are currently on the run.
By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson
jeffdegraft44@yahoo.com