Court acquits second and third accused persons in Ato Essien’s case

Two accused persons standing trial with the founder of now-defunct Capital Bank, William Ato Essien, have been acquitted and discharged by the Accra High Court.

The two are Fitzgerald Odonkor, Managing Director (MD) of the bank, and Tettey Nettey, the MD of MC Management Services, a company said to be owned by Ato Essien.

According to the court, the second and third accused persons were found not guilty of the crimes levelled against them and have therefore been acquitted and discharged.

The presiding judge, Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, said that Ato Essien committed the crime and used the two accused (Fitzgerald Odonkor, and Tettey Nettey) without their knowledge.

On the other hand, the founder of now-defunct Capital bank, William Ato Essien, pleaded guilty to charges of misappropriation of depositors' funds and other counts of stealing, abetment to stealing, conspiracy to steal and money laundering, among others.

This was after the court accepted the terms of agreement reached between lawyers of Mr. Essien and the prosecution to pay a total of GH¢90 million as refund to the state.

He was subsequently convicted on his own plea pursuant to the agreement by the parties.

The prosecution, represented by the Deputy Attorney General, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, explained to the judge how they arrived at the GH¢90 million amount.

According to him, investigations conducted by the state showed that some GH¢65 million and GH¢35 million belonging to Capital Bank were used by another company; Capital African Group, to acquire shares in Capital Bank.

Upon realising this through its investigations, the prosecution said the share acquisition was reversed and the money was retained by Capital Bank.

These amounts formed part of some GH¢192 million the accused persons have been charged with and therefore, the share acquisition was revoked and the amount retained.

The prosecution further noted that the total amount from these two transactions was GH¢100 million and therefore the outstanding amount out of GH¢192 million currently stands at GH¢92.

The three were slapped with a combined 23 charges of stealing, abetment to stealing, conspiracy to steal and money laundering among others.

Brief facts

The prosecution, led by the then Attorney-General (A-G), Ms Gloria Afua Akuffo, accused the four people of engaging in various illegal acts that led to the dissipation of the GH¢620 million liquidity support given to Capital Bank by the BoG between June 2015 and November 2016.

It is the case of the A-G that Essien, with Odonkor’s aid, transferred the liquidity support to certain companies either controlled by him or in which he had interest.

She said, an amount of GH¢130 million of the liquidity support was transferred to MC Management Services, which was later presented to the BoG as the initial capital to set up Sovereign Bank, another bank in which Essien had an interest.

The A-G further alleged that between June and October 2015, Essien, aided by Odonkor, appropriated GH¢c27.5 million of the liquidity support by carrying it in jute bags.

“The money was purportedly used as payment for business promotion,” she told the court.

The AG also accused Essien of giving some liquidity support to his cronies in the form of a loan to be used to buy shares in Capital Bank.

Acquittal

Initially charged with (Essien, Nettey and Ordonkor) was Madam Kate Quartey-Papafio, whom the A-G had said as part of the scheme to further dissipate the GH¢620 million liquidity support, Essien transferred GH¢70 million of the money into her bank account at Cal Bank.

The prosecution further accused Ms. Quartey-Papafio of trying to withdraw the money in 2017, even though she was aware that Capital Bank had collapsed and was in receivership.

The withdrawal, the A-G submitted, was, however, prevented by the receivers of Capital Bank.

But, after the prosecution had closed its case after parading 16 witnesses, she was acquitted and discharged by the court upon its ruling on submission of no case.

In a ruling on July 8, 2021, Justice Kyei Baffour held that the prosecution failed to establish any prima facie case against Ms Quartey, to warrant her to open her defence.

He ruled that there was no evidence that showed that the businesswoman intended or acted in any way to steal money from Capital Bank.

According to the judge, the businesswoman only acted as a trustee for another person who wanted to purchase shares from the bank but had no knowledge that the said money was part of the liquidity support.

Also, the court held that the said money (GH₵70million) was still in the custody of the Consolidated Bank and had not been appropriated or stolen by the businesswoman.

“A prima facie case has not been established against her. Rather she acted childish in the deal. The law does not punish the fool but the one with evil intention,” the court ruled.

The presiding judge was Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court judge.

The case, which started on October 15, 2019, ended on December 13, 2022.



AM/EA