Ambulance case: Your request is a desperate smokescreen set up to abort legitimate prosecution – AG to Jakpa

The Office of the Attorney General has described businessman Richard Jakpa’s application to have charges dropped against him as “a desperate smokescreen set up” to “abort his legitimate prosecution for the role he played in causing colossal financial loss to the State.”

The Attorney General, while opposing the application filed by Richard Jakpa, the third accused at the High Court for charges to be dropped against him in the ambulance purchase case, stated that Jakpa’s request is “an abuse of process and unmeritorious.”

In an affidavit in opposition deposed by a Principal State Attorney, the AG further argued that “no proper grounds have been canvassed by the applicant to warrant a grant of this application, which is unknown to criminal procedure and practice in Ghana.”

On Thursday, May 30, lawyers of businessman Richard Jakpa, led by Thaddeus Sory, filed an application at the High Court demanding that charges against their client be struck out.

They also want the ongoing proceedings terminated following allegations of abuse of process by Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame, the initiator of the criminal proceedings.

Jakpa’s application also seeks a stay of the proceedings before the Court against the Third Accused.

But the AG, in its response, said, “the instant application is a ruse and a desperate smokescreen set up by the applicant to abort his legitimate prosecution for the role he played in causing colossal financial loss to the State in the purchase of ordinary vans purporting to be ambulances.”

The 25-paragraph affidavit in opposition, filed on Friday, May 31, 2024, also stated that the application, “anchored on untruths and a skillful manipulation of facts, seeks to clothe the applicant with immunity from prosecution and to this extent, is incompetent and offensive to Ghanaian law.”