Soccer fans besiege court premises

Accra, Sept. 10, GNA - The premises of the Cocoa Affairs Court in Accra was besieged on Friday by friends and sympathisers of Abubakar Nallah, Chief Executive Officer of Tudu Mighty Jets Football Club, who is on trial for narcotic offence.

The crowd included football fans and supporters of Nallah; aka Abu Sundoko, to hear the trial of the accused and nine other officials of Narcotics Control Board (NACOB).

The others are Fatimatu Abdulai, Dennis Adutwum Gyimah, Yakubu Issaka, Timothy Aboloimpo and Peter Ansong.

The rest are Mutawa Kilu Yahaya Iddi, Jerry John Kwesi Abbiw, Eric Darko Akuffo and Nana Zamsah Evrah.

They have all pleaded not guilty to abetment in the importation and exportation of narcotic drugs.

There was a scuffle between the mob that besieged the court premises and the police when they attempted to prevent journalists from taking photographs of the accused persons.

Counsels for the accused persons prayed to the trial judge, Mr Eric Kyei Baffour to grant their clients bail since they cannot be kept in custody by the prosecution that had failed to establish a case against them.

They urged the court to dismiss the charges against their clients because the main culprit, one Edward McCauley whose confession motivated the prosecution is not in the dock.

Mr Kyei Baffour declined the bail application and urged the defence counsels to write a formal application for bail to the Attorney General copied to the court at the next sitting.

Even though the prosecution asked the court for two weeks adjournment to conduct further investigations on the matter, the court granted a week adjournment.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Abicham Boye, prosecuting told the court that Nallah was a businessman and the rest were officials of NACOB at the headquarters in Accra.

Sometime in July this year, a suspected narcotic drug dealer who has been on the wanted list in the US was arrested at Dansoman in Accra, and during investigations text messages from him were allegedly received from Fatimatu on his cell phone.

DSP Boye said the text messages revealed that Fatimatu of the Procurement Unit of NACOB had been aiding Macaulay and others to import and export narcotic drugs through Kotoka International Airport.

He said Fatimatu was arrested and during interrogations admitted the offence.

DSP Boye said Fatimatu mentioned some NACOB officials and personnel of other security agencies including the accused persons as accomplices who compromised their position and allowed drug couriers safe passage after receiving various sums of money from them.