Saturday, October 16, 2010 (Page 3)
THE prosecution in the nationality trial of the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bawku Central, Adamu Daramani Sakande, is to verify the authenticity or otherwise of documents produced by the MP to prove that he has renounced his British citizenship.
The Accra Fast Track High Court, which granted a request from the prosecution to this effect when the case was called yesterday, therefore, adjourned proceedings to October 28, 2010.
The court fixed the date after it had overruled an objection from counsel for the MP, Mr Yonny Kulendi, who had prayed the court to refuse the request for an adjournment from the prosecution because, according to him, the prosecution should have thoroughly investigated the case before wasting the taxpayer’s money, the court’s time and his client’s time.
Mr Kulendi had said it would be an abuse of the discretion of the court to adjourn the case to enable the prosecution to verify the MP’s defence when the prosecution had failed to prove a case against his client.
“If the state, with all its resources, is not able to thoroughly investigate the matter before coming to court, the court should not allow itself to be used as a subterfuge,” Mr Kulendi pointed out.
A Chief State Attorney, Mr Rexford Owiredu, had earlier informed the court that his outfit had submitted, through the Police Forensic Laboratory, to the British High Commission in Accra documents tendered by the MP.
On October 8, 2010, the MP tendered in evidence documents which bordered on correspondence between his United Kingdom lawyers and the British Home Office, which led to the eventual approval of his renunciation of his citizenship in September, 2008.
Following the tendering of the said documents, Mr Owiredu informed the court at its sitting in Accra yesterday that the defence did not give the prosecution the opportunity to verify the authenticity of the documents because the defence submitted those documents on short notice.
According to Mr Owiredu, the defence did not give the prosecution the chance to verify the documents before cross-examining on it.
He, therefore, asked for a week’s adjournment to enable the prosecution to verify the authenticity or otherwise of the documents tendered in evidence by the MP from the British Home Office.
Opposing the application, Mr Kulendi said the prayer from the prosecution was unreasonable, unjustifiable and unwarranted because the prosecution was asking the court to cure an omission it (prosecution) had created.
“We have not invited them to do our case for us. If they believe the documents we tendered are defective and do not comply with law, it is their gain and our loss,” Mr Kulendi stated, pointing out that the prosecution should have silently investigated the documents and addressed the court on it if it later found them to be fake.
Mr Kulendi said the prosecution’s case against his client was crumbling and that instead of conceding to save the taxpayer money, as well as save the court time, it was asking the court to hold the scale of justice in its favour, adding that it was also strange for the prosecution to add documents it had not objected to while they were being tendered to the documents it had forwarded to the Home Office for verification.
Upholding the prosecution’s plea for an adjournment, the trial judge, Mr Justice Charles Quist, said it was important for the court to grant the deferment to enable the prosecution to verify the authenticity of documents for cross-examination of the witness to continue.
The MP was, on July 31, 2009, arraigned before the court, charged with nine counts relating to his nationality, perjury, forgery of passport, election fraud and deceiving public officers to be elected as an MP, but was exonerated on six of those charges on July 8, 2010.
He is currently facing three charges of false declaration of office or voting, perjury and deceiving a public officer.
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