Cocaine Case Closes

THE GEORGINA Woode Committee has rounded off its investigations into allegations of bribery leveled against some top Police officials by Ms. Grace Asibi, the girlfriend of suspected Venezuelan cocaine fugitive.

Lawyers of both the Deputy Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Mr. Patrick Ampewuah, and Superintendent Edward Tabiri, formerly of the Rapid Response Unit of the CID, have presented their various addresses.

Grace's lawyer, Mr. James Abiaduka, could however not present his address because he wanted additional time to link in some issues raised by both Mr. Ampewuah and Mr. Tabiri.

Lawyer Ellis Owusu Fordjour, representing Mr. Ampewuah, who has been accused of threatening Grace to leave the country within 12 hours for exposing officers in the scandal, has stated that if Grace's story should be believed, then she could be described as a conspirator He continued that Grace was bitter about not being given her share from the raid in the East Legon residence as promised by the Police officers, and was therefore perpetrating falsehoods about the Police.

He said just after the CID successfully executed the operation in East Legon where about 588kg of cocaine was seized, Grace had presented these false stories to divert attention.

Mr. Fordjour said the CID lured Grace to give them the tip-off to arrest the Venezuelans by promising her half of what they would find in the building of the raid.

He said Areeba had made available all calls made to the number that was supposed to have been used by Mr. Ampewuah to call Grace to threaten her on March 31 this year within a particular period, so that with the help of security agencies, investigations could be conducted to verify that his client was the owner of the said number.

Meanwhile, the President of the Ghana Journalists Association and a member of the Committee, Mr. Ransford Tetteh, has condemned the media for reporting on hearings that were supposed to be in-camera.

He stated that the media was not supposed to use subterfuge means to acquire information, as their code of conduct frowns on such.

He said the Committee had held some of the proceedings in-camera because of its threat to national security, but the press had ignored such a directive not to report on the proceedings, which attitude, he sad, had brought the credibility of the Committee into disrepute.

The Managing Editor of the Daily Guide Newspaper, Mrs. Gina Ama Blay, when asked to produce the source of the information regarding the Inspector General of Police' testimony to the Committee, which was held in-camera, elaborated how a journalist's means of getting information was a privilege.

She further noted that the source of the information could not have been from any Member of the Committee, stressing that information was floating in the broadcast media on the day the IGP appeared before the Committee.