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Army Officer's Wife Convicted for Stealing

Sun, 11 Jul 2004 Source: Chronicle

The wife of Major Robert Affram of the Airborne Force, Mrs. Evelyn Affram, was last Friday convicted to 150 penalty units and is to refund the remaining amount of money she took from the complainant or in default six months imprisonment in hard labour for misappropriation of somebody's fund. One penalty unit is ?20,000.

The Accra tribunal judge, Mrs. Jennifer Tagoe, in her judgment, said the prosecution, represented by Deputy Superintendent of Police, (DSP) J. A. Abraham, had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused misappropriated an amount of 1,200 pounds given her by the plaintiff, Ola Durojayie, aka Kwame Dankwa, to acquire visas for his brothers to travel to the United Kingdom.

Mrs. Tagoe said that Evelyn's allegation that she gave the money to a lady called Abigail, because Ola instructed her to, was too sweet to be true, adding that Evelyn, as a cashier at Ghana Telecom, should have known that receipts or documentary evidence were needed after payments are made.

The judge said the defence failed to establish blackmail in the case against the first plaintiff, Ola, describing her story as an "ananse story."

The mention of the ananse story by the judge drew laughter and giggles from the people who were in the courtroom. She had tendered in evidence a publication in The Daily Graphic that portrayed Ola as a security threat and an impostor, but which was later found to be false and was published in The Daily Graphic and The Chronicle.

Prosecuting, DSP Abraham said Ola sent an amount of 1200 pounds through Western Union Money Transfer to Mrs. Affram to acquire British visas for his brothers two years ago.

After waiting for sometime without any reply on the progress on the acquisition of visas, Ola asked her mother to go for the refund of the money, which was ?12 million then.

Ola had also learnt that Evelyn was not trustworthy because at one time she gave her passport with a UK visa to her sister who travelled to the United Kingdom, but was arrested at Heathrow Airport.

However, Evelyn denied having in her custody the money, saying she had given it to a lady called Abigail whose wherabouts she could not trace, but whom Ola had instructed her to give the money to.

This compelled the plaintiff to institute a court action against her to recover the money.

The accused had earlier paid ?1 million to Ola's mother for the procurement of passports for his brothers and also paid ?1 million to the Military Police, where the case was first reported.

Evelyn also paid ?8 million to the court when the case was pending.

Speaking to Ola in London over the weekend about the verdict, he said he was happy that he had won the case, adding that he had helped the woman on many occasions and did not understand why she did that.

He told The Chronicle that he was in the process of filing a suit at the Accra High Court against Brigadier Adu Manfo and the Ghana Armed Forces Military Intelligence Department for declaring him wanted without any justification or painting him as a threat to national security.

Source: Chronicle