An application filed by Oliver Barker-Vormawor asking an Accra High Court to strike out the committal proceedings on which he was committed to stand trial, was yesterday dismissed by the court.
The court has, however, upheld his other application seeking to strike out the charges on the Bill of Indictment on grounds of duplicity and multiplicity, and ordered the prosecution to amend the charges levelled against him to reflect what the law says.
This was contained in the court’s ruling delivered by Justice Mary Yanzuh, on two separate applications filed by lawyer for the accused, who has been charged with two counts of treason felony after he had indicated on his Facebook and Twitter handles that he will undertake a coup, calling the Ghana Military “useless” in the process.
His lawyer, Justice Srem-Sai, filed the applications before the court indicating that the accused has been charged with treason felony but a careful reading of the particulars show that he is also facing the charge of high treason, and this sins against the rule of duplicity which prohibits the situation where the particulars of a charge contain two or more of offences.
He argued that the charges against Barker-Vormawor entail duplicities and prevents the accused from properly preparing a defence, as he is facing a charge which is bad and it offends the rule of double jeopardy.
The application was opposed by Hilda Craig, a Senior State Attorney who argued that the charges against the accused person were as a result of the fact that he posted the treasonous statements using both Facebook and Twitter, which are two different platforms hence the issue of duplicity or multiplicity has not come up.
She said if the prosecution had put the two into one, that would rather have resulted in duplicity which the defence lawyer was complaining about.
Ms. Craig added that the trial has not properly commenced, as a jury is yet to be empaneled, hence the accused and his lawyer cannot be complaining about double jeopardy at this point.
The presiding judge, Justice Mary Yanzuh, in her ruling on the application to strike out the committal proceeding, said there has been no records of proceedings available in respect of this application for the court to detect the errors complained about.
She said Barker-Vormawor did not demonstrate enough reasons for the court to exercise its discretion in his favour, as the committal proceedings complained of are not before it to make references from.
On the application seeking to strike out the charges on the Bill of Indictment, the court held that the elements of high treason and treason felony are both present in the particulars of offence, indicating that it was not for nothing that the proponent of the law made specific elements for charges.
She said the application succeeds in part and granted the prosecution time to amend the Bill of Indictment to reflect the law.
Hilda Craig, a Senior State Attorney, indicated that the prosecution will amend the particulars of offence.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak