Former Attorney General and Justice Minister Nii Ayikoi Otoo has described as a “huge embarrassment”, the “collapse” of the case against three arson suspects who were being tried by the State in connection with some recent market fires.
“…We said it, that it was going to collapse…at the end of the day, that’s it, it’s collapsed,” he said on Saturday July 27, 2013.
The three suspects were picked up following a streak of market fires in the national capital, Accra, as well as in the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi.
The arrests followed suspicions of arson expressed by President John Mahama and some of his ministers, particularly Odododiodoo Member of Parliament, Nii Lantey Vanderpuije, in connection with the numerous market fires.
One of the three suspects was granted bail earlier on grounds of ill health.
The other two were held in custody for almost a month due to delays by the prosecution to adduce evidence against them.
The trial judge, at a point, threatened to release the suspects if the State failed to provide evidence to prosecute them.
According to Nii Ayikoi Otoo, “when you have too much of propaganda in almost everything you do, you may end up putting yourself into some kind of difficulty [which] at the end of the day will embarrass you”.
“Seriously, this is a huge embarrassment,” he told Joy FM’s news analysis programme Newsfile on Saturday.
He added: “We kept on warning them that it will happen and there it is. They had no evidence. They wanted to create the impression that they’ve done some work” and kept playing “propaganda” with the case until the judge told the suspects that: “…Please go home, when they are ready they can come, so it’s true to our predictions”.
