Police detective remanded for helping a convict abscond three-year jail term

Detective Lance Corporal Kwame Adu Asabereh, a police officer stationed at the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) Headquarters, Accra, has been remanded into prison custody by an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly helping a prisoner escape a jail term.

The suspect, of British background, is facing charges of forgery of official documents; abetment of crime, namely prisoner escape; and corruption by a Public officer.

He will be tried under the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29). He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Inspector Dickson Atuna, the prosecutor, told the court that in 2019, a case of defrauding by false pretences involving one Harold Davies Johnson a.k.a Emmanuel Snowden, a British National, was reported by Dr Shadrack Asare.

Harold Davies Johnson, the suspect, was later arraigned before the Accra Circuit Court ‘2’ presided over by Her Honour Naa Adjeley Quaison after due investigations.

Johnson pleaded guilty to the charge and was convicted on his own plea and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.

Harold Davies Johnson was then handed over to Detective Lance Corporal Kwame Adu Asabereh to be kept in Nsawam Prison.

“Surprisingly, the accused person failed to send the convict to the prison. He elected to send the convict to his house at Sarpeiman and live with him for some time,” Prosecutor Inspector Dickson Atuna told the court.

Inspector Dickson Atuna noted that further investigation revealed the officer’s action was upon the promise by the convict, Harold Davies Johnson, to assist him [the policeman] travel abroad, but before he, the convict, does that, the suspect namely the policeman now on trial, must release the convict’s British Passport, which was in his custody to him, to enable him to travel back to the United Kingdom.

The prosecutor added that Detective Lance Corporal Kwame Adu Asabereh then allegedly forged the Police Removal of Prisoner book to suggest that the convict had been sent and received by the Nsawam Prison authorities.

The Prosecutor opposed vehemently Counsel for the suspect, Yaw Dankwah, who had prayed that the court grants his client bail.

The prosecutor argued on the grounds that the accused person was on interdiction and investigation had also shown that he was on the verge of running away from the jurisdiction.

The court, after listening to both arguments, refused to grant the suspect bail and instead remanded him into further custody.

The court also ordered the prosecution to expedite the trial by filing and serving the accused person and his counsel all documents requiring disclosures as well as witness statements.

The Case has been adjourned to April 27, 2021, to enable the prosecution to carry on with further investigation.

Background

Harold Davis Johnson was on March 7, 2019, convicted to three years imprisonment with hard labour by an Accra Circuit Court presided over by Her Honour Ruby Naa Adjeley Quaison but strangely the convict is not in jail.

After the conviction, it was recorded by Police Investigator Isaac Ken Yeboah of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) that the convict had been surrendered to the Ghana Prison Service to serve his jail term.

Entries in the police docket stated that the police investigator in charge of the case had been the one presenting the convict before the Circuit Court for some other trial subsequent to the initial trial, instead of the Ghana Prisons Service.

But inquiries at the Prisons indicated that the convict since he was convicted in 2019 has not been sent to prison to serve his sentence.

Ernest Asante Adofo, Deputy Director of Prisons in a letter sighted by GhanaWeb wrote: “I wish to inform you that a thorough search through our records reveals that Mr Harold Davies Johnson was not brought into our custody.”

That, sometime in December 2020, the Police Service got information that the convict had not been surrendered to the Prisons to serve his sentence.”