Lawyer J. K. Ampah may have died because he was being pressurised to lie under oath and his heart could not stand the pressure, and not because of any spell that ex-President Rawlings' June 4th 'Boom 4' Speech may have cast on him, as is being spread in Government circles.
This is the inevitable conclusion that one comes to upon reading the pre-hearing statement of Mr. Ampah and also scrutinising the minutes and other internal correspondence of the National Reconciliation Commission which Ghana Palaver has had access to.
The late J. K. Ampah's petition dated 10th September 2002, and signed by him, which was submitted twice because of postal difficulties, never mentioned ex-President Rawlings or any encounter with ex-President Rawlings. Indeed in the 21 years that the incident happened, the late Mr. Ampah had never mentioned the ex-President's name.
However, it appears that on his arrival in Accra, somebody at the NRC, not necessarily “up there”, pressurised him to write an additional statement in which for the first time, he mentioned ex-President Rawlings as follows: “In support of my statement made to the Commission on 10th September 2002, I wish to state further that when I was beaten by the army officers on the night of 19th October, 1982, I was taken to meet former President Rawlings. What he told me was that why was I taken (sic) the gold to England when they need money to buy drugs for the hospitals. I was taken to meet Rawlings in the company of Messrs. Attiogbe and Baidoo”.
There is everything suspicious with the statement, which is published on this page. First, Mr. Ampah did not sign it; in fact, it is not signed at all, which is unusual for a lawyer. Second, the grammar does not suggest that a lawyer wrote it. Third, the handwriting identifying the statement as Mr. Ampah's, also not signed, and is different from the handwriting of the statement itself. Fourth, if the statement were true, this would be the first time in the 21 years since the incident that Mr. Ampah was mentioning this fact.
That statement is dated 19/03/03. On that same date, an official of the NRC, in a handwriting that is remarkably similar to the one that confirmed the statement as Mr. Ampah's, minuted to the Executive Secretary as follows: “The complainant has just returned from London. He says he will be available for the next two months or so and wants to know if he could be heard before he returns to London. Prez. Rawlings' name came up in the statement”.
Submitted for your directives pls.”
Indeed, President Rawlings' name had not come up in the statement. President Rawlings' name had only come up in the unsigned, unauthenticated, unconfirmed further statement of the same day which it appeared Mr. Ampah had either been pressurised to write or had had written on his behalf.
In any case, what had Prez. Rawlings' name coming up got to do with the complainant's wanting to be heard whilst in Ghana, unless that was a signal to trigger off some action.
On 24/04/03, NRC Executive Secretary Dr. Kenneth Attafuah minuted to the Chairman of the NRC recommending that Mr. Ampah be heard, as he had to return to London by mid-June.
Mr. Ampah was duly booked to appear and did appear before the NRC on Thursday, June 5, 2003, at which hearing tragedy befell him and he collapsed and died.
Unfortunately, only Mr. Ampah could have revealed whether he was suffering from a crisis of conscience occasioned by the pressure on him to mention ex-President Rawlings, and whether that caused or could have caused or contributing to causing his untimely death.
Alas, we shall never know.
J.K.AMPAH -- THE TRUE STORY
May the soul of the late London-based barrister Joseph Kodwo Ampah, the man who collapsed and died before he could testify at the National Reconciliation Commission NRC) rest in perfect peace.From what Ghana Palaver research has been able to unearth, it is clear that Mr. Ampah was coming to tell a story different from what the historical truth is.
According to the Daily Graphic of Friday October 22, 1982, a copy of which is published in this paper, Mr. Ampah was arrested at the last check point at the Kotoka International Airport for trying to smuggle three gold bar pieces out of the country. He managed to outwit the tight security network and customs checks at the Airport, but could not escape the grips of the National Defence Committee (NDC) officials at the last checkpoint.
Some of the people who took part in the operation have revealed to Ghana Palaver that Mr. Ampah was taken to the State House on his arrest, and that it was while they were en route there that they encountered one Attiogbe who is a Rawlings look-alike. One of them, then an Inspector but now a Superintendent, is currently working with the Serious Fraud Office. It was this chance encounter that Mr. Ampah was made to mis-represent in his additional statement to the NRC as an encounter with ex-President Rawlings.
According to the ex-NDC operatives, it was at the State House that a search of his luggage revealed three pieces of gold bars concealed in the local 'amonkye' soap.
According to a later Daily Graphic report of Saturday, December 4, 1982, a copy of which is reproduced in this paper, Mr. Ampah, who pleaded guilty to the offence, was convicted on his own plea and sentenced to 17 years with hard labour.
The Tribunal Chairman, Mr. Addo-Aikins, in passing sentence, said that the Tribunal considered the age and the family of the accused in not imposing the maximum sentence.
The case was prosecuted by Mr. C. O. Lamptey, a former IGP and a prosecutor at the Office of the Special Public Prosecutor at the time, which was headed by now Justice J. C. Amonoo-Monney, an Appeals Court Judge.
A member of ex-President Rawlings' legal team, when contacted on Ghana Palaver's research findings, said that he was not surprised.
According to him, it is clear that Mr. Ampah's concocted 'unfinished story', reported in the Daily Graphic of Friday, June 6, 2003, of meeting ex-President Rawlings who was told that “Sir, we have brought the lawyer with the gold” allegedly referring to jewellery which his father-in-law, a goldsmith, had manufactured for his daughter and grand daughters who were living in London, was simply composed to confirm Corporal Matthew Adabuga's fairy tale of ex-President Rawlings going on operations in search of gold.
