Major Mahama
Private Legal Practitioner, George Bernard Shaw, has accused a prosecution witness of peddling falsehood to satisfy the prosecution in the trial of 14 persons alleged to have murdered Major Mahama.
According to the defence lawyer, Kwame Adjei who is the third prosecution witness in the trial was in court to do the bidding of the prosecution because he was discharged of the allegations levelled against him.
Kwame Adjei was among 22 persons who were arraigned before an Accra Magistrate Court for their alleged role in the murder of Major Mahama who was part of military detachment sent to Denkyira Obuase in the Central Region.
He was, however, discharged by the court along some seven other suspects after the office of the Attorney General decided to drop the charges against them because there was no evidence linking them to the crime.
Prior to his discharge by the court, the witness had spent a total of seven months in police cells and the Nsawam prison.
In view of this, the defence lawyer claimed the witness was appearing before the court to testify in order to appease the prosecution.
Kwame Adjei however denied the allegations, saying he was telling the court the truth and he was not doing the bidding of the prosecution as claimed by the defence lawyer.
Asked under cross examination when he got to know he would be a prosecution witness he told the court it was after he was discharged by the Magistrate Court.
“You were happy when they told you to do their bidding when they asked you to come and testify”, the lawyer queried. “That is not so”, the witness replied.
He told the court that it was Evelyn Keelson, a chief state attorney, who told him that he was going to be a witness in the substantive trial.
The witness also denied claims by the defence lawyer that he had previously met to discuss issues with the prosecution prior to his appearance in court to testify in the matter.
He said the only time he met Mrs. Keelson other than in court was the first day he came to court to testify and he was introduced to her on the corridor as the next witness.
“The only question she asked me was when I arrived and I told her”, the witness said.
Interestingly, the witness told the court he could not recognise the defence lawyer who was the same lawyer who represented all the 22 suspects at the Magistrate Court until he and the other seven were discharged.
This led to give-and-take between the lawyer and the witness until Kwame Adjei conceded that the lawyer at times spoke for them (suspects) at the Magistrate Court.
The witness in his evidence-in-chief told the court that on the day of the incident he heard people shouting “thief thief thief” at Denkyira Obuase and he decided to go and have a look at what was happening.
When the defence lawyer put it to him that it was his “fear and anxiety about the spate of armed robberies in the area that prompted you to leave your job and go after whoever it was when you heard ‘thief thief’”, the witness said “yes, because there had been theft cases in the area”.
Afterthought
Meanwhile, the witness has denied claims that the evidence he gave to the court was an afterthought and not the true representation of what transpired.
Another defence lawyer, Patrick Anim-Addo, had accused the witness of changing his mind on his evidence as his testimony sharply contradicted what was contained in the two statements he gave to the police when he was arrested.
The witness however insisted that whatever he told the court was the truth.
The court presided over by Justie Mariama Owusu subsequently discharged the witness after the defence lawyers had concluded their cross examinations.
In view of the impending legal vacation which commences on August 1, the case was adjourned to October 24, 2018 for the prosecution to call their next witness.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak