Amoateng’s passport for court

Ibrahim Issaka Lan-Gani, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) testifying against the former Member of Parliament (MP) for Nkoranza North, Eric Amoateng, for alleged fraudulent acquisition of passport, will tomorrow tender the said passport in court.

The prosecutor in the case, DSP Aidan Dery, made this known in the court presided over by Mrs. Ellen Vivian Amoah, and said the witness was to tender the passport yesterday but could not do so because it was not immediately available.

The prosecutor explained that the investigator in the case had informed him that the passport was in the custody of his Second In-Command (2IC) who was not around to hand it over to the investigator.

He consequently prayed the court to adjourn the case for the passport to be handed over to the investigator for onward tendering in court.

Charles Puozuing, counsel for Amoateng, told the court that they were interested in justice being done and would therefore oblige the prosecutor to bring the passport to court.

The matter was subsequently adjourned.

Amoateng, who arrived in court in the company of some few family members and friends, was seen talking to his lawyer after the adjournment and left a few minutes after.

Ibrahim Issaka Lan-Gani, at the last hearing stated that Amoateng looked surprised when he (Lan-Gani) told him (Amoateng) that the passport he (Amoateng) used in traveling to Ghana was a forged one.

The witness explained that Amoateng told him that he had written to the Ghana Embassy in the United States of America on the issue of a travel document but did not receive any response.

According to the witness, on August 7, 2014, he was on duty at KIA at the arrival hall when he was given notice by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) that a deportee would arrive with Delta Airlines from the USA.

He said when all passengers disembarked he spotted the accused person and asked him (accused) to go with him (witness) to his (witness’) office where Amoateng gave him his passport and immediately he saw the data page, he knew it had been forged so he immediately informed the MP about it.

In addition, he said Amoateng told him that after his prison term in the United States, he wrote to the Ghana Ambassador there about a passport but said he did not receive any response.

Amoateng, a teacher and farmer, had spent over seven years in the United States of America prison in connection with heroin-related offences.

The passport Amoateng used in flying back to Ghana is reportedly issued to a lady originally called Barbara Inkoom, numbered H2347080.

The passport was issued in Accra on February 23, 2009 – during which time the suspect was still in prison in the US.

The suspect was granted bail in the sum of GH¢200,000 with three sureties, one to be justified.