We'll appeal my client's incarceration - Counsel for former NCA boss

Counsel for William Matthew Tetteh Tevie, a former Director-General of the NCA, Lawyer Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe has disclosed that they will appeal against the jail sentence handed to his client.

Though he was not ready to reveal how and when the appeal was going to be filed, he explained that his client is innocent and has been wrongly jailed.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia programme, he explained that nothing implicated his client in the trial so he could not fathom why he has been jailed for willfully causing financial loss to the state.

"My Client, as a director-general, only signed for a purchase agreement and thus did not do that alone, a Director of Finance also signed for the same purpose. So how do you implicate my client in this case?"

"Moreover, the said equipment that was signed for and purchased has been bought and installed with the country owing the Israeli company another 4 million dollars."

"We are definitely going to appeal against this judgment because it is sad for someone who has worked for the state and through no fault of his, is being treated this way," he explained.

The Accra High Court has sentenced three former government officials to various terms in prison after convicting them of willfully causing financial loss of $4m to the state.

Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, a former Board Chairman of the National Communication Authority (NCA) will serve six years imprisonment for his part in the $4m NCA scandal.

William Matthew Tetteh Tevie, a former Director-General of the NCA and Alhaji Salifu Mimina Osman, a former Deputy National Security Coordinator were each sentenced to five years imprisonment for also causing financial loss to the state in the scandal.

The court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, also ordered the State to seize assets of the convicts to the tune of $3 million since the state has only recovered $1 million of the amount.

The three were found guilty of indulging in acts that led the State to lose the amount in a deal purchase of a cybersecurity surveillance equipment, known as the Pegasus machine, for the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), which was sponsored by the NCA.