William Ato Essien
THE FOUNDER and Chief Executive Officer of defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien, was yesterday provided with the statements of account of his collapsed bank by the Bank of Ghana.
The documents detail the bank’s account statement between June 2015 and August 2017, which the embattled CEO claims will prove that he is innocent with respect to the charges for which he is standing trial for allegedly stealing money from the bank leading to its collapse.
The documents, which were submitted by Emmanuel Edward Arhin, Chief Manager at the Banking Department of BoG, were at the behest of the accused person who made the court to subpoena the Central Bank for the documents.
Baffuor Gyawu Bonsu Ashia, who held brief for Thaddeus Sory, counsel for the accused person, after taking a look at the very bulky documents, told the court that they may not need everything as they were only looking for “something specific.”
He, therefore, prayed the court for a short adjournment to enable them peruse the documents and conclude their examination-in-chief of the BoG official, adding that, “It will not be a wild goose chase and it will not delay this trial unnecessarily.”
However, the court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffuor, a Court of Appeal judge, sitting as an additional High Court judge, expressed concern about the accused taking away unmarked documents which were yet to be tendered in evidence.
He also asked the lawyer what he intended to do with the bulky documents, drawing his attention to sections 51 and 52 of the Evidence Act, which deal with relevant evidence and the court’s power to exclude relevant evidence “If the probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.”
The court, therefore, stood the case down for one hour to allow Ato Essien and his counsel to go through the documents and pick the relevant ones which can be admitted and studied later.
Mr. Gyawu, after the case was recalled, told the court that after going through the documents, they noticed that a number of them were already in evidence so in order to avoid repetitive evidence on record, he prayed to be given time to reconcile what they had with what was in evidence.
The request was not opposed by the prosecution led by Evelyn Keelson, a Chief State Attorney. The court granted it while adjourning the case to March 17, for continuation.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak