Ernesto Yeboah was arrested during the vigil of George Floyd
Ernesto Yeboah, the leader of the Economic Fighters, is still in police custody after being granted GH¢100,000 bail.
His lawyer, Sammy Darko explained: “The reason Ernesto although has been granted bail by the court but is still in custody is because by the time the Police finished verifying the sureties and where they lived, the court had closed and so they will have to go back to the court early tomorrow,” he told Citi News in an interview yesterday [June 11, 2020].
Sammy Darko told the court that the bail terms were harsh and excessive because his alleged offence was misdemeanor and that he already has a police enquiry bail. But the judge declined to revise the bail terms.
The lawyer noted, “The law is very settled on how to execute a bail, but I do not know why there is always a problem. When you are granted bail, it is the duty of the registry of that court to determine your sureties, whether they are viable or not. If the court is satisfied with your surety, then the duty of the Police now comes in. The Police are supposed to investigate where you live in the event that if the person jumps surety then the Police can locate such a person and hold you responsible.
Now when Ernesto was granted bail, our decision was that he should execute the bail bond in court and then the Police can take him away and go and verify all the sureties but the police insisted that they need to take him to the police station and that the sureties must come to the police station for them to go to their individual houses to verify and I am very sure they have been doing that the whole day. And so by the time they were done, the court had closed and so they could not go back to the court to sign. Unfortunately, he has to spend the night [at the police station]".
Ernesto Yeboah was arrested on Saturday, June 6 at a George Floyd vigil held at the Black Star Square (Independence Square) in Accra and was charged with failure to notify the police of a special event contrary to the Public Order Act, 1994 (Act 491) section 1(1).
He pleaded not guilty and the court granted him bail with three sureties; two of whom are to be public servants.
By contrast in America, where night curfews are in place in several cities, the police shepherd the demonstrators through their acts of positive defiance and civil disobedience.
Ernesto Yeboah and some sixty persons were confronted by police and soldiers on June 6 during the vigil and in viral videos, soldiers are seen beating up some of the protestors of George Floyd's gruesome murder.
