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A lawyer who is defending a banker and another standing trial over GH GHS356,100.00 theft is lamenting over bail conditions meted out to his clients.
Mr Andy K Vortia said the bail conditions were albatross and that his clients were unable to execute the bail condition as a result of the justification and has prayed the court to review it.
Ferdinand Kofi Amponsah, an employee of the Bank, and Issah Abdul aka Issah Alhassan have been charged with Conspiracy and Stealing from various accounts at GCB Bank limited.
The two had earlier pleaded not guilty to the charges and were admitted to bail in the sum of GHS400,000.00 with four sureties each with a justification before the court presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku on December 14.
The accused persons are to deposit their passports to the court’s registry and report to the Criminal Investigations Department every Wednesday.
Appearing before the substantive judge, Mrs Afi Agbenu, Defence counsel prayed the court to review the justification and include civil servants.
Mr Vortia questioned why the Police was still keeping Issah Alhassan, an accomplice whom Amponsah accused wrongly.
According to Mr Vortia, the case investigator should have left Alhassan off the hook as he had been accused wrongly.
However, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) A. Yirenkyi who held brief for the prosecution recounted that it was not the duty of the investigator to discharge Alhassan because the matter was before the court.
ASP Yirenkyi told the court that Amponsah in the morning had been able to meet the bail conditions but Alhassan had not been able to execute his bail.
The court, therefore, reviewed Alhassan’s bail by waving the justification. It ordered that the sureties should be people in gainful employment. The other conditions were however to remain.
The matter has been adjourned to January 19, 2017.
The prosecution had earlier told the court through Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) George Amega that Amponsah was stationed at the Takoradi branch of GCB and Abdul is an auto-mechanic and a customer of the Bank.
DSP Amega said during the period between September and November this year, Management of GCB Bank, Accra, received complaints on fraudulent withdrawals from various customers’ accounts.
According to the prosecutor, these withdrawals were carried out with cheques found to be “cloned cheques,” drawn on accounts located at the Bank’s branches in Accra.
Prosecution said it was established through investigations that while the true account holders had their genuine cheque books intact, replicated copies of leaflets bearing the serial numbers of leaflets not yet issued by account holders were produced with forged signatures.
DSP Amega said these cloned leaflets were drawn on the Bank and presented at branches outside Accra and various withdrawals made.
The Prosecutor said the Police established that four accounts of the Bank had fraudulent withdrawals made on them.
Police investigation revealed that Amponsah even though stationed at Takoradi at the Corporate Banking outlet used his identification number FC07072 which was assigned to him at Mampong to make several enquiries on the accounts prior to or after the cloned cheques were presented.
Based on that, prosecution said Amponsah was nabbed and during Police investigations, he admitted the offence and disclosed that it was upon the request of Abdul that he made enquiries on the account.
According to the Prosecutor, Amponsah also indicated that he took photographs of signature mandates, chequebook serial numbers, photographs and other confidential details of high valued accounts holders, which he forwarded to Abdul and others.
It came to light that Amponsah in his current deployment was not permitted to check or query individual customer accounts of the Bank but he was engaged in these activities secretly in collaboration with accomplices to steal money from the Bank.
Prosecution said cloned cheques presented at various branches of the Bank had resulted in the theft of GHS356,100.00.
Prosecution said Amponsah had admitted receiving money from Abdul and claims to own two houses at Kasoa, which were built from the proceeds of the crime.
Prosecution said seven other accounts have also been identified as being used by Amponsah and other staff of the Bank and huge withdrawals made.
The Prosecutor said further investigations are underway.
