Nana Ama McBrown. INSET: Bulldog
An Accra Circuit Court has issued a witness summons against TV show hostess, Nana Ama McBrown, to testify in the trial of Lawrence Nana Asiamah Hanson, aka Bulldog, who allegedly threatened President Akufo-Addo live on television.
The subpoena followed claims by the prosecution that the popular actress was reluctant to help their case and appeared not to want to come to the court to testify.
Bulldog, an artiste manager, is alleged to have said on a United Television (UTV) programme that “The President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will not finish his four-year term if he failed to pay customers of Menzgold.”
Appearing before the court yesterday, the prosecution led by Chief Inspector Simon Apiorsornu stated that Nana Ama McBrown had gone to the police headquarters the previous day “to tell the investigators in the matter that she will not come to court, no matter what.”
The prosecutor therefore, prayed the court to issue a subpoena to compel her to appear before the court to testify since her testimony was crucial to the prosecution’s case.
Jerry Avenorgbor, Counsel for Bulldog, took exception to the prosecutor’s statement, saying he was misleading the court.
He said Nana Ama McBrown was only invited to the police headquarters and a statement was demanded from her, which “she did not give freely”as being claimed by the prosecutor.
He said she only gave her statement as demanded by the police and the police have insisted on using the statement as her witness statement.
There was a back and forth between the lawyer and the court presided over by Evelyn Asamoah about the witness statement.
Chief Inspector Apiorsornu later told the court that it was the defense counsel that was rather misleading the court as he had no idea about “our investigation.”
The presiding judge then issued a witness summon to Nana Ama McBrown to appear before court today to testify in the trial.
Case Profile
Bulldog is before the court for allegedly threatening that “The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will not finish his four-year term if he failed to pay Menzgold customers.”
The prosecutor said on January 11, this year, the police intercepted the said video recording on the Facebook page of UTV, which attracted many comments from viewers who watched and heard the accused making those “unguided” comments.
The prosecution said on January 12, this year, Bulldog was handed over to the police by the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) for investigations.
In the course of the investigations, the prosecution said the police requested for the original video recording from UTV, and it was played to the accused and he admitted having made those comments.
The prosecutor said the original video, which was in Twi and English language, was forwarded to the Ghana Institute of Languages for transcription and that had since been transcribed into the English language.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak