Michael Nyinaku
THE OFFICE of the Attorney General will on February 3, 2023, call its first witness in the trial of founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Beige Bank, Michael Nyinaku, who is accused of stealing over of GH¢1.2 billion from the defunct bank.
This follows the completion of case management conference and the prosecution filing the witness statements of the six voluntary witnesses they intend to rely on to secure a conviction for the beleaguered businessman.
Evelyn Keelson, a Chief State Attorney, last Friday indicated to the court that their seventh witness would be testifying via a subpoena hence the decision to file witness statements for just six witnesses.
She added that the prosecution will communicate to the court any changes that may occur in the course of the trial with regard to the number of witnesses to call.
The prosecution has also indicated that its first witness would need just 10 minutes for his evidence-in-chief but has 88 exhibits attached to his witness statement which would be entered into evidence.
The trial judge, Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a Court of Appeal judge sitting as an additional High Court judge has urged the defence team to quickly decide whether they would want to activate Section 34 of the Court’s Act to refund the money the accused allegedly stole.
She said she will not tolerate the defence team waiting until the court is ready to deliver its judgment before they decide to come under Section 35 as occurred in the case of William Ato Essien, where the court had to set aside its judgment because of the GH¢90 million agreement between the accused the prosecution.
The court said should that happen, it will go ahead to read the judgment irrespective of the agreement that the two parties may have entered.
Meanwhile, Justice Asare-Botwe, was unsure whether she would continue with the trial as she is yet to receive a confirmation on where she will be sitting as a Court of Appeal judge.
“I don’t know where I would be posted to. I’m waiting for the correspondence from my boss to know the city where I would be posted to. For now, I don’t know the city. Hopefully by the next sitting I should have some information to know if I will handle the case even though trial has partially started with the plea of the accused,” she said.
Court documents filed by the Attorney General indicate that the accused person had the defunct bank transfer various sums of money between 2015 and 2018 into various accounts for his personal use.
Some of the accounts were fictitiously created on the blind side of board of directors of companies that already had accounts with the bank. Monies deposited in such accounts were later transferred into various accounts of companies linked with Mr. Nyinaku for his personal benefit.
He has been charged with a total of 44 charges of stealing, fraudulent breach of trust and money laundering, according to the charge sheet filed by Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Michael Nyinaku has been charged with nine counts of stealing contrary to Section 124(1) of the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29).
He has also been charged with 26 counts of fraudulent breach of trust contrary to Section 128 of the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29).
Again, the embattled former bank owner has been charged with another nine counts of money laundering contrary to Section 1(2)(a)(ii) of Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2020 (Act 1044).
BY Gibril Abdul Razak