Dame should have filed nolle prosequi after Jakpa tape was released - Martin Kpebu

Lawyer Martin Kpebu has explained that the state should discontinue the ambulance trial case involving former Deputy Finance Minister, Cassiel Ato Forson and one other.

Kpebu said in an interview on Joy News' Upfront programme that a leaked audio of Attorney-General Godfred Dame and the third accused, Richard Jakpa, discussing issues of the case outside the court had cast a long shadow over the case.

This, he said, was enough grounds for the A-G to have filed a nolle prosequi because of the contents of the tape and its impact on proceedings.

"The Attorney-General was supposed to have entered a nolle prosequi to stop this case the moment this tape came out.

"Then it would have been a matter of speculations here and there... but now this tape has been admitted officially," he stressed while commenting on an Accra High Court's decision to admit the Jakpa tape.

He pointed at how the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in defense of the A-G, dismissed the tape among others describing it as fake and doctored.

He cited comments by NPP National Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye and the party's head of legal affairs, asking: "Can you imagine how it (admission of the tape) erodes their credibility?"

Kpebu also stressed that the content of the tape as admitted "can be used against the office of A-G not just Godfred Dame."

Despite the trial judge strongly advising Dame to stay out of the prosecution of the case, the A-G said he was committed to seeing through the case by himself.

Jakpa has since been cross examined over the tape by lawyers for the first accused, state prosecutors will take their turn on June 18, 2024, when the court reconvenes.

SARA