Kennedy Agyapong
It has emerged that the complainant in the infamous $1.9 million gold scam in 2009 failed to appear before court to testify because he was allegedly threatened with ‘juju.’
A retired state prosecutor, Ellen C. Kwawukume, who was in charge of the case at that time, claims the complainant failed to show up on three consecutive times to testify because the accused persons- Mohammed Hafix Abdullah, Mubarak Seidu and Prince Kingston- who were at large, had threatened him with ‘juju.’
This, she said, was the reason why the then presiding judge, Justice Quist, discharged the accused persons in the matter.
Eyebrows were raised following the discharge of the accused persons in 2010, with some suspecting that money had exchanged hands to ‘kill’ the matter.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, has, on many occasions, raised issues with how the matter ended abruptly, and even accused investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas of paying the prosecutor an amount of US$5,000 to ‘twist’ the case.
Following the screening of the Assin Central MP’s video, ‘Who Watches The Watchman,’ the retired prosecutor, in a reaction to the video, maintained that she did not receive any money to obstruct justice.
In a notice, she claimed the video, which was shown by the MP, was edited to presuppose she had been compromised.
“The said case was assigned to me on or about the 2nd of October 2009 in the course of my work as a prosecuting attorney in the service of the Attorney Generals Department. After a perusal of the docket, I asked for further investigations and thereafter took the case to court on or about the 11th day of May 2010. The case was presided over by Justice Quist,” she claimed.
“Three dates were given for day-to-day hearings, the 12th, 13th and 14th of May 2010. The complainant failed to turn up in court on all days. It was alleged that the accused persons threatened him with ‘juju.’ Whatever his reason was for not showing up, it fuelled agitations by the accused persons to be discharged since the complainant had failed to turn up for the start of the case,” the retired prosecutor added.
Adjournments
Ms Kwawukume claimed in order to save the case, she decided to call Anas to give his evidence since it was his investigation which led to the arrest in the first place.
She said when it got to the tendering of the video, the counsel for the accused persons raised objections.
She further claimed the presiding judge subsequently adjourned the matter on numerous occasions without “tangible reasons.”
Threat To Sue
Meanwhile, the retired prosecutor has threatened to sue Kennedy Agyapong if he fails to retract and apologise for claiming she took money from Anas Aremeyaw Anas to influence the outcome of a case she was handling.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak