Isaa Abass To Drop Bombshell

By Larry-Alans Dogbey

Alhaji Issa Abass, who spent some time in the Nsawam Maximum Security Prison over the controversial MV Benjamin cocaine case has welcomed President Mills’ decision to set up a Presidential Commission to re-investigate the missing drugs, and insisted, he would make some shocking revelations he got from prison, if invited.

“When something you don’t know anything about is put on you, and you are incarcerated for fifteen years in prison, I don't think that anybody will be happy. I have been released on appeal, but I am still not happy so I want the whole thing to be cleared so that the world will know that I am not a drug baron as it was alleged”, he said.

ACP Kofi Boakye, some time last year, also publicly said he would welcome another investigation into the matter. Mr. Boakye was captured on audio tape suggesting that instead of the interdiction as told Ghanaians, the Kufuor government rather sent him home with what could best be described in the Police Service as a VVIP treatment because Kufuor regime was uncomfortable with him as Director of Police Operations.

“The only thing is that cocaine came; information was given to the government that this is cocaine but they didn’t do anything about it, and when I decided to enquire, they sent people to tape me. Please, go back for everybody to listen to the tape; where did I go wrong”? ACP Boakye asked his audience rhetorically on the tape which is still in the possession of The Herald.

According to Abass, while in Nsawam Prison, he took time, and spoke to the owners of the ship MV Benjamin and also of Adede 2, and was able to obtain some very interesting revelations, and when invited to the probe he would put this before the Commission.

Alhaji Abass, who said he would like the Presidential Commission to be telecast live, expressed pains that during his trial, all the information he and Mr. Kwabena Amaning, alias Tagor, gave out in court was not captured by the court press, but instead much attention was focused on the claims of the prosecution which was later shredded on appeal.

He said: “The government knows how they are going to run their investigations, but when I am called I am willing to tell them what I know. I am ready to answer every question that I am asked”.

He was not sure whether his colleague Tagor would also want to appear before the Commission to give evidence.

On Accra-based Citi FM last week Friday, Alhaji Abass said that the incarceration has cast a slur on his reputation and completely jeopardized business making life unbearable for him and his family.

In another interview, Alhaji Abass told Radio Gold that an appearance before the Presidential Commission will give him the opportunity to clear his name. “It should be re opened, and trust me, I‘m very, very, very excited”, he said, and asked:

“Why am I excited, you see stigma of drug when it is put on you, trust me it tarnishes you, your kids and your family and everyone who is close to you”.

‘’But when this case is re-opened, at least, it will broaden the mind of every Ghanaian and also those who point their fingers on me that this is a drug baron, he is the one who took the MV Benjamin, and whatever they are saying, it will clear it”. Alhaji Abass added and said “this is the right way forward.”

ACP Boakye, who currently heads the Police Training School, told some friends during a party in London, where there was much to eat and drink: “...I want to assure you people that I meet armed robbers, and they know I meet armed robbers. They give me money and I put armed robbers in hotels so that we can use them to arrest armed robbers”.

“Atta Ayi, he pointed out, was arrested because armed robbers gave me information. I go to prisons, take remand prisoners, and work with them, so what was different from meeting the cocaine dealers who are known to the system,?”

Kofi Boakye said “Issa was a supplier of police vehicles for government, Tagor was a good friend of the establishment. So even if I want to do cocaine, I won’t be doing it with these people. He alleged that there are other nationals in the country who are also involved in the drug trade who could have been better partners than Tagor and Abass.

For fear of being exposed, therefore, Kofi Boakye claims the former government rather gave him a juicy package even as he was supposed to be on interdiction.

But he told his friends in London: “The fact is that since two years ago, I have been in the service, I have been given my full pay, I use my bodyguards, I use my driver, they give me car, they give me a new house. The only thing is that they don’t want me to come to work.”

“Take it from me, I was not interdicted. Two years …since two years, they always gave me full pay, bodyguard, driver.….they don’t do any work apart from being with me, going to court with me, going to school with me when I was going to school.

“They gave me a new house exactly where the ministers stay; 4C. I don’t stay there anymore; I gave it to one of my boys. I stay in my own house,” the now head of Police Training School told his friends in London. (That house is now being occupied by the director of Town and Country Planning).

“So the fact is that they realized that as Director General of Operations, when I am there, they cannot be doing the kind of things they did in Kumasi, what they did in Tamale…..So the only problem is that they didn’t want me to be in office, but I’m in the service”, he said.

“I am not even on interdiction. Since two years ago, nobody has asked me anything on this Issah-Tagor issue,” he told his audience during the interaction.

Alhaji Abass and Tagor were jailed 15 years in hard labour for drug offenses by an Accra Fast Track High Court. They were convicted on the basis of a tape recording which the Court of Appeal, later found to be inadmissible.

They were first arrested in August 2006 after appearing before the Georgina Wood Committee which probed the disappearance of 77 parcels of cocaine aboard the vessel, but failed to locate the whereabouts of the deadly drugs.

The court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse, found Tagor guilty on two counts of conspiracy to commit crime and promoting narcotics. Alhaji Issa Abbass was also found guilty for conspiracy to commit crime and engaging in prohibited business related to narcotics.

President Mills told Parliament in his third State of the Nation Address last Thursday that he had directed the case to be re-opened for further investigations as the earlier administrative investigation did not yield any fruitful results because the cocaine was not found and the culprits were also unidentified.

Like Osei Prempeh, former Deputy Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Malik Kwaku Baako, Managing Editor of the New Crusading Guide, said on Joy fm radio station on Saturday, that President Mills has embarked on a wild goose chase by the re-opening of investigations into the loss of the cocaine.