Sam George
Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo-Prampram Constituency, Sam George, has been denied the opportunity to screen a video before the Emile Short Commission.
The MP appeared before the commission on Monday, February 25, 2019, to give testimonies into the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency by-election shooting incident which occurred on January 31, 2019.
After initially giving his evidence verbally, he made passionate appeals to the the commission to allow him screen a video he had brought him to support the testimonies he had given.
He was virtually snubbed by the commission and its lawyer for more than an hour.
“I am requesting humbly that I be allowed to walk through the sequences,” he said whilst making demands for him to show the video.
But the more he pleaded, the more he was ignored by the commission, almost as if to say the commissioners could not hear what he was saying or they were not interested in it at all.
Presumption
Meanwhile, he told the commission that the claim he made during the shooting incident that a man has been killed in his own house was based on assumption.
“This is so wrong, this is so wrong. You killed a man in his own house,” Sam George was heard saying in a video from the violent election.
But he argued before the commission that due to the state of the man who was allegedly being assaulted, he presumed that he had been murdered.
The lawyer for the commission then told him that since the man in question did not actually die, his (George’s) comment was unfortunate. But his counsel quickly objected to that, saying the commission’s lawyer’s comment was “prejudicial”.
But the lawyer argued that per Article 61 of the 1992 Constitution, the commission has the powers to probe the substance of the evidence and not just to take the evidence.
Justice Short’s attention was drawn to the comment and he said there was actually nothing wrong with what the lawyer had said, but urged him to carry on with the questioning.
BY Melvin Tarlue