February 1, 2012 (Lead Story)
THE Human Rights Division of the Fast Track High Court on January 31, 2012 granted bail to Deputy Superintendent of Police Mrs Gifty Mawuenyegah Tehoda on the grounds that the charge against her was flawed.
According to the Presiding Judge, Mr Justice Kofi Essel-Mensah, “the particulars of offence accompanying the statement of offence are alien to the law and I, therefore, do not see why her rights must be curtailed”.
Ignoring an earlier move by the prosecution to introduce fresh evidence to convince the court to refuse Mrs Tehoda bail, the judge upheld a bail application from counsel for Mrs Tehoda and granted her bail in the sum of GH¢100,000, with two sureties.
Counsel for Mrs Tehoda, Mr E. A.Vordoagu, had prayed the court to grant his client bail because the charge preferred against her was incompetent, vexatious and without merit.
After standing the case down for three hours to enable the prosecution to file its affidavit in opposition to the defence team’s bail application, a Chief State Attorney, Mr Rexford Wiredu, emerged, accusing Mrs Tehoda’s husband and her uncle, who is also a policeman, of using crude methods to secure her release.
Those allegations did not deter the judge from scrutinising the charge sheet and the particulars of offence, which eventually led to the granting of bail to the accused person.
Mrs Tehoda, who is at the centre of the cocaine-turn-sodium carbonate saga, has been charged with one count of abetment of stealing cocaine under Section 20 (1) of Act 29/60 and Section 56 (a) of the Narcotic Drugs (Control, Enforcement and Sanctions) Act 1990, PNDCL 236.
But the particulars of offence stated, “Gifty Mawuenyegah Tehoda, Police Officer, between 21st July, 2011 and December 2011 in the Greater Accra Circuit and within the jurisdiction of this court did aid and abet one Nana Ama Martins’ families and other individuals to commit crime, to wit loss of cocaine exhibit.”
That, according to the judge, was misleading, because there was no law which charged individuals for “loss of cocaine”.
He, therefore, held that holding the accused person for abetting crime was misleading and for that reason the court would uphold her human rights and admit her to bail.
Mr Justice Essel-Mensah admitted that although the case was a simple legal matter, it had become topical and sensational and for that reason the court would be very careful in giving its ruling.
The first question the judge posed was: “Has the applicant (Mrs Tehoda) been charged with any narcotic offence?”, to which he (judge) answered that the charge sheet bore no reference to that.
He then argued that although the prosecution had said she had abetted crime by stealing cocaine, the same charge sheet explained that she had contributed to the loss of cocaine exhibit.
The court held that the Criminal and other Offences Act had not enacted such a law.
Based on those inconsistencies and ambiguities in the charge sheet, it held that Mrs Tehoda could not be held any longer in detention.
Contrary to a court order on Tuesday, January 30, 2012 that they should produce the accused person, BNI officials failed to do so, but Mrs Tehoda’s husband and her family members expressed open joy after the court’s ruling yesterday.
They congratulated the defence lawyers, Mr E. A. Vordoagu and Mr Oliver Dzeble, for securing the freedom of their relative.
Mr Vordoagu had argued that the prosecution lumped the charge sheet together, thereby rendering it either mischievous or incompetent.
He further argued that the prosecution was seeking to misdirect the law and stated that the charge preferred against his client was bailable.
According to him, Mrs Tehoda had been kept in custody since December 29, 2011 on flawed charges.
“You do not arrest a person only to fish for evidence to incriminate her. This is dangerous practice and I pray the court to admit her to bail on flexible terms,” he said.
He assured the court that Mrs Tehoda would comply with the court’s orders when granted bail.
Responding, Mr Wiredu pointed out that the accused person was lawfully charged and denied an assertion that defence lawyers had been denied access to her.
Mr Wiredu informed the court that the sister of Nana Martins, the lady who was said to have possessed the cocaine which turned to washing soda, had been directed by Mrs Tehoda’s husband not to co-operate with the police.
He said he had evidence to prove that Mrs Tehoda’s uncle, a sergeant in the Ghana Police Service, was scheming with Mr Tehoda and Nana Martins’s sister to secure Mrs Tehoda’s release.
According to the Chief State Attorney, the three persons were working “furiously to interfere in the process” and for that reason it would be dangerous to grant the accused person bail.
He, therefore, prayed the court to take the seriousness of the offence, as well as accompanying punishment, into consideration and refuse the accused person bail.
Mrs Tehoda had, on January 17, 2012, pleaded not guilty to one count of abetment of stealing of cocaine and was remanded by the Circuit Court to reappear on February 6, 2012.
The police handed the accused person over to the BNI on December 29, 2011 on suspicious dealings with Nana Martins after she (Nana Martins) had been rearrested in July 2011.
Nana Martins was acquitted and discharged by the Accra Circuit Court of the charge of possessing cocaine in the trial which was aborted after the court had upheld a submission of ‘no case’ made by her counsel.
BNI Investigations led to the arrest of Mrs Tehoda for her alleged role in the swapping of the cocaine.
The prosecution said investigations were still ongoing to identify Mrs Tehoda’s collaborators.
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