The price of justice

Douglas Kissi, 32 is at the center of a bribery allegation against an Accra High Court Judge and two lawyers of which he has petitioned the Ag Chief justice, Attorney-General and the President of the Republic of Ghana.

According to the Weekend Statesman, a letter from the Deputy Attorney-General shows that investigations are underway into Kissi’s claim that his legal representative in a case conspired with the defendant and his lawyer to bribe the judge to rule against him.

Kissi alleges that he saw his lawyer, W. L. Antonio, leaving a set of documents and a sealed envelope on the desk of an Accra High Court Judge, Victor Ofoe. The envelope, bearing the stamp of Daniel Abebrese and Associates, a law firm in Team, is in the possession of the paper.

The paper alleges that the bizarre letter appear to be written by the defendant, C. S. Sethi, through his lawyer, Daniel Abebrese, referring to an alleged 40 million bribe to the judge as an inducement to dispose off the case against Sethi, an Indian entrepreneur.

The judge, Victor Ofoe, telephoned the offices of this paper on Wednesday 24 October 2001 to deny ever receiving the alleged bribed and promised to hand over the matter to the Serious Fraud Office for investigations.

Mr Kissi is in the High Court accusing his ex-employer, Sethi, of injecting him with a chemical substance with the intention of keeping him awake at his post as a security man at the premises of Sethi Brothers Company Limited, a paint manufacturing firm in Tema in the Greater Accra Region.

His predicament started when C. S. Sethi offered him a security job in November 1995 with a “mouthwatering” monthly take home pay of 400,000 cedis. According to him, his employer decide to train him on how to use a gun; an unlicensed one at that time. He said he foolishly agreed when his employer said he had to inject him with a chemical to keep him awake as a guard.

On 17 December 1995, upon a report by Sethi, the police arrived at the premise of said company to check if there had indeed been a robbery. That was when they saw Kissi with the unlicensed gun and arrested him. He was kept on police cell for four days and arraigned before a Tema Community Tribunal. He was later released on police bail to begin his “25-month court ordeal”.

Whenever the case was called Sethi was never present in court to give evidence for judgement to be passed on the case. Unknown to Kissi, the police have on record that Kissi had burgled Sethi’s house. The case was eventually thrown out of court. Upon his acquittal and discharge from the James Fort Prison, he took the matter to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) but Sethi failed to show up.

Following futile attempts to seek redress at the CHRAJ, Kissi approached the Legal Aid Board, where he was assigned Lawyer Antonio, who Kissi claims extorted 500,000 cedis from him. With the bribery allegation levelled again the trail Judge, Kissi fears that justice may once again elude him.

Today, Kissi’s psychological order has been altered due to the injection of the strange chemical substance on him. A medical report issued by Dr Sammy Ohene of Accra Psychiatric Hospital states’ “clinically, the history and examinations suggest that Douglas Kissi is suffering from a recurrent psychosis probably the type called schizophrenia. This is a major psychological illness”.