Cash for Justice: Compromised State Attorney assigns blame to govt

A senior state attorney, Emmanuel Lawrence Otoo-Boison, has laid blame on government’s door for failing to provide him with airfare to the United Kingdom to pursue an alleged state-imposed programme, hence his decision to demand money for a flight ticket from the relatives of a crime suspect.

His statement came up strongly in a video documentary of an undercover investigation conducted into Ghana’s justice system by the EIB Network’s investigative journalist, Edward Adeti, and aired Thursday’s evening on GhOne Television and Starr News.

The veteran state prosecutor also told an undercover agent engaged by Adeti to pose as a relative of an accused person, Mohammed Awal, who is standing trial in the Upper East region for alleged rape, that he was ready to take a bull from the suspect’s family and sell it to raise the airfare for the London trip.

Below are the transcript and the video clip of that conversation

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: I will be travelling.

AGENT: Okay.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: You people should, should go and look for money and, then, come and help me buy my ticket.

AGENT: Okay.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: I’m going for a programme in London.

AGENT: Okay. Okay.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: And, then, government is saying that I should— they have given me the programme…

AGENT: Okay.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY:…And I should buy my ticket. I need thousand, err, three and hundred and fifty pound sterling.

AGENT: That would be how… in cedis?

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: It’s over two, err— twenty million— twenty-one thousand.

AGENT: Twenty-one thousand.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Yes.

AGENT: Okay.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: And, then, I need to get it before, err, Friday.

AGENT: This Friday coming?

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Ehnn.

AGENT: So, do you think, how much are we supposed to…?

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Oh, no, no, no— anytime, anything that you can, you can do to help.

AGENT: Okay.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Yeah. Those who are, who are close to me, they are the people that I’m…

AGENT: Okay.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Yeah. But I have told you that…

AGENT: So, the family was rather…

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Huun.

AGENT: …Giving a cow, a bullock. That after the deal, they should bring it to you. So, I don’t know whether…

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: That, that bullock, how much would it cost?



AGENT: Well, if you take it, it’s better than taking money. If you take that cow, it’ll be getting to three thousand plus.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Errhn.

AGENT: I wanted to snap the picture. But with your position, I said no, it’s not good to be showing you those things.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: When I take it, how I’m going to sell it.

AGENT: Oh, you will give it to the market trucks so they will send it to down south. You will call somebody to take it and sell it there for you.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: (A child interrupts the conversation. He tells the child to go and wait for him. Then, he resumes the chat.) At this time, who will I get?

AGENT: Don’t you have brothers?

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: They are in Kumasi.

AGENT: Erhhn. It’s better you collect and send it to mayanka (an abattoir). It won’t even, or you can sell it in Bolga here.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Huun. So, I will get that amount, errh?

AGENT: Oh, you’ll get it. You’ll get it. If you call the butcher people. Maybe I can connect somebody, will give you somebody’s number. Call that, o, I want to sell this my cow.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: And, then, how soon will they come?

AGENT: Oh, it will be when the thing is, the man is out. I will, I will bring it.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Huun.

AGENT: Since I know that you’ll be travelling.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Huun.

AGENT: I will, I will do.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: I need the money badly. I need it badly.

AGENT: Now that you are going, and this is the best time for us to get the animals.

SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY: Oh, my bodyguards, when I’m not here, they are here o.