Lawal Fuseini
The Security Coordinator at the Metro Mass Transit Company Limited (MMTL), Lawal Fuseini, has been sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in hard labour for blackmailing the company’s former Managing Director, Bennet Aboagye.
The convict, in March 2018 planted a voice recorder in the office of the then Managing Director ostensibly to blackmail him and succeeded in recording his boss and subsequently demanded $1 million to destroy the audio recording.
Court documents reveal that the convict threatened his boss that he would release the audio recording to both print and electronic media to dent his reputation if he failed to meet his demands.
The former Managing Director, is said to have noticed that it was a ploy by Lawal Fuseini to blackmail him and extort money from him, so he decided to play along, the documents say.
Lawal had pleaded not guilty to four counts of conspiracy to commit crime, extortion and unlawful entry.
But an Accra Circuit Court presided over by Her Honour Adelaide Abui Keddy found him guilty of the offences and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment.
His conspirator, who is only identified as Bawa, is still on the run and the police are on the look out for him.
Facts
The facts of the case presented by DSP Nyamekye indicate that the ex-MMTL Managing Director met the accused person and negotiated the said $1 million to GH¢20,000.00, which was later increased to GH¢40,000.00 due to demands by the accused person and his supposed accomplice, one Bawa, who is at large.
But his suspicions were heightened when his wife found a scanned copy of a criminal check report he obtained from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on his compound.
The criminal check reportedly contained threats that if Mr. Aboagye failed to pay the $1 million demanded earlier, the audio recording said to contain ‘corrupt acts’ would be released to the Chinese government, as Mr. Aboagye was billed to travel to China at the time.
This confirmed the complainant’s suspicion that he was being blackmailed as the criminal check report was in his office and only an employee of the company could have had access to it.
He subsequently reported the matter to the police for further action.
He, however, met the accused prior to reporting the matter to the police, where he made the GH¢40,000.00 payment in two installments at different places and dates.
Mr. Aboagye and an eyewitness, according to the police, recorded the accused person taking the money.
The court heard that investigations revealed that Lawal Fuseini picked his boss’ key from a common room where all keys are kept and illegally entered his office where he planted the voice recorder.
He said the accused, after collecting the GH¢40,000.00, deposited it in his ADB bank accounts on May 5, 2018, which he later withdrew on May 19 and May 2, 2019.
The prosecution said he admitted the offence in his police caution statement, but insisted that he took the decision to plant the voice recorder in the former Managing Director’s office to get proof of his supposed ‘corrupt deals.’
The prosecutor told the court that the said Bawa, who conspired with Lawal Fuseini to blackmail Mr. Aboagye, initially denied any knowledge of the act.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak