Cocaine Case Back In Court

The trial of Abu Nallah, Chief Executive Officer of Tudu Mighty Jets football club, and nine officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), who were granted bail some few weeks ago, has resumed on Tuesday at the circuit court in Accra.

When the case was called, all the 10 accused persons were present in court as well as their legal representatives. However, the case was adjourned following a request by Mr Anthony Rexford Wiredu, Principal State Attorney, to allow the prosecution time to consolidate all other matters relating to the case into a single docket.

Mr Wiredu explained that the prosecution was consolidating the dockets on Edward McCauley and McCauley Junior, and of the 10 NACOB suspects into one docket.

He said the consolidation of the various aspects of the matter would make it easy for the prosecution to carry out its work, and prayed the court to adjourn the case to November 24, 2011. Mr Ellis Owusu Fordjour, a member of the defence team for the accused persons, asked the prosecution to assure defence that they would not prolong issues to delay the trial.

It would be recalled that the 10 accused persons were each granted bail in the sum of GHC70, 000 with a surety to be justified, because the prosecution failed to convince the court why they should be kept in custody when there was nothing to connect accused persons with the charges before court.

In addition, the accused persons were also asked by the court to deposit their passports with the court’s registry.

The accused persons, Fatimatu Abdulai, Dennis Adutwum Gyimah, Yakubu Issaka, Timothy Aboloimpo and Peter Ansong, Mutawakilu Yahaya Iddi, Jerry John Kwesi Abbiw, Eric Darko Akuffo and Nana Zamsah Evrah are on trial for alleged narcotic related offences.

In July this year, a suspected narcotic drug dealer, who has been on the wanted list in the US, was arrested at Dansoman in Accra, and during investigations text messages were allegedly received from Fatimatu on his cell phone.

The text messages revealed that Fatimatu of the Procurement Unit of NACOB had been aiding the suspected drug dealer and others to import and export narcotic drugs through the Kotoka International Airport.

Fatimatu was arrested and during interrogation admitted the offence, and mentioned some NACOB officials and personnel of other security agencies, including the accused persons, as accomplices, who compromised their positions and allowed drug couriers safe passage after receiving various sums of money from them.