Nii Kotey Dzane attempts to escape after being convicted of contempt

Correction: This story earlier misspelt the name of the businessman. Correction has been made to reflect the right spelling of Dr Nii Kotey Dzane.

Dr. Nii Kotey Dzane, businessman and Real Estate developer, attempted to escape from court after he was convicted of contempt of court, GhanaWeb has learnt.

The Court of Appeal delivered the judgement in Accra on Thursday, November 10, 2022.

According to GhanaWeb sources, Dr. Nii Kotey Dzane was developing a number of houses on a tract of land opposite the A&C Shopping Mall at East Legon, Accra, when he was slapped with an order of injunction by the Court of Appeal.

The injunction was to restrain Dr. Kotey Dzane from work on the land pending the determination of an appeal.

Despite this order, Dr. Kotey Dzane continued to develop the land, leading to the institution of contempt proceedings against him.

The Court of Appeal heard the arguments for and against the contempt of court and on November 10, the Court delivered its ruling on the matter stating that Dr. Dzani had disobeyed the injunction order.

The motion was entitled the Republic vs. Nii Kotey Dzane Ex-parte Ghazi Azar, Dr. Nii Kotey Dzane was convicted and sentenced to two weeks in prison. The Court was presided over by three Court of Appeal judges; M. Welbourne, Bright Mensah and Novisi Aryene.

GhanaWeb was informed by its sources that after the court had delivered its ruling, the convict, Dr. Nii Kotey Dzane, was seen conferring with his lawyer and appeared to be making phone calls.

"Before the eyes of the policemen in the courtroom, the convict dashed down the stairs of the court, got into the car of his lawyer and escaped.

"Lawyers for the applicants immediately raised an alarm and the Registrar of the Court of Appeal, Mr James Mensah, was alerted," the source stated.

The source added that a report was consequently made to the judges and the Registrar was ordered to immediately contact the lawyer in whose car the convict appeared to have escaped.

The lawyer, GhanaWeb is informed, was then given a 15-minute ultimatum to produce the convict, failure to do that, a report will be filed at the General Legal Council, GLC, about her behaviour.

The source stressed that the lawyer then produced the convict about an hour later and official documents were prepared and he was immediately taken to the Nsawam Prisons to serve his term of imprisonment.