Counsel for Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Gifty Mawuenyegah Tehoda, who allegedly swapped 1,020 grammes of cocaine with sodium bicarbonate, on Friday prayed an Accra Circuit Court to strike out the case against his client.
Mr E. A. Vordoagu, Counsel for the accused said “My Lord it appears to me that the Attorney General is not interested in prosecuting the case, therefore it must be striked out.”
“My Lord, with regard to the conduct of the prosecution failing to attend court means it has lost interest in the case. This is the 11th time the case has been adjourned because the prosecution failed to attend court. This shows that the prosecution is not interested and I pray that the matter be strike out and the accused acquitted and discharged accordingly.”
When the case was called on Friday, Mr Vordoagu said “We have been in court since morning and neither the investigator or prosecutor is in court. They have failed to appear again. It appears the prosecution has exhausted all avenues and is no longer interested in the matter.”
However, the court presided over by Mr Francis Obiri, said the prosecution should show respect to the court by informing it of their inability to appear before it and therefore adjourned to June 5.
At the last sitting on February 20, Chief State Attorney, Anthony Rexford Owiredu asked for more time to determine the direction of the case.
DSP Tehoda has since been granted bail by an Accra Fast Track High Court after the Circuit Court declined to grant her bail.
She had earlier been granted bail since February 14, on two different occasions by the Human Rights Court, but the prosecution managed to secure her remand at the lower court.
The court granted her bail in the sum of GH¢100,000, with two sureties, one to be justified, and directed her to report herself to the police on Mondays.
She is facing one count of abetment of crime, to wit, undertaking an activity relating to narcotic drugs.
The facts of the case are that the accused between July 21 and December 13, 2011 abetted one Nana Ama Martins to swap a cocaine exhibit weighing 1,020 grammes with sodium bicarbonate.
Following Vice President John Dramani Mahama‘s directive on December 4, 2011, the Bureau of National Investigations investigated the missing cocaine, which was tendered in evidence in Circuit Court One on September 27, 2011 and was admitted without objection in evidence for the court in the case involving Nana Martins.
The following day, September 28, 2011, the defence team objected to the exhibit, claiming it was not cocaine.
The prosecution said, it would lead evidence to prove that an uncle of Nana Martins, called Yankah, and a sister Serwah Gyaabah, told a witness in the case that they (uncle and Serwah) managed to turn the cocaine into sodium bicarbonate with the help of DSP Tehoda after the presiding judge and court clerk had refused to take GH¢4,000 and GH¢1,000, respectively, as bribe.
It said there was another witness to confirm the role played by DSP Tehoda and the others to turn the cocaine into sodium bicarbonate.
The prosecution stated that DSP Tehoda assisted Nana Martins’ family to get a buyer to sell her house in order to raise GH¢10,000 to pay legal fees and other expenses.
She invited Nana Martins’ lawyer to her office three times to pay off his legal fees.
It alleged that DSP Tehoda had informed the lawyer that she, with the connivance of others, had managed to swap the cocaine and that at the trial he should request for a re-testing which was done.
The prosecution said evidence would be led to show that DSP Tehoda jubilated in her office after the narcotic drug found on Nana Martins had tested positive for sodium bicarbonate.**
