New Twist To Trial Of 6 Policemen

By William Yaw Owusu

Tuesday, 05 December 2006
THE case of the six policemen being held for their role in the disappearance of 76 parcels of cocaine from the MV Benjamin vessel at the Tema Port, took a dramatic turn at an Accra Fast Track High Court yesterday when one of the accused, General Sergeant Isaac Asante, appeared as a prosecution witness.

Due to the new development his counsel, Musah Ahmed, declined to cross examine him after completing his evidence-in-chief.

Mr Ahmed however, indicated that at the next adjourned date which is today, he will either ask other counsel in the case to cross-examine on his behalf or make his other client, Sergeant David Nyarko, one of the accused “face him.”

The other policemen on trial are Lance Corporals Dwamena Yabson of the Tema New Town Police Station and Peter Bundorin of Kpone Police Station, both under the Tema Regional Police Command.

Nyarko, Yabson and Bundorin have pleaded not guilty to two counts of engaging in prohibited business relating to narcotic drugs and corruption by a public officer and are on remand in police custody.

The other accused persons are Corporal Kennedy Dzakeh and Detective Sergeant Samuel Yaw Amoah who is on the run.

Led in evidence by Mr Agyemang Duodu, a Principal State Attorney, Asante told the court that on April 26, he was about to sign off from the office when Sergeant Charles Mensah called him and told him that he had received information that somebody was offloading drugs at the Kpone beach.

“I therefore went to the scene with Bundorin and Yabson who had come from Tema in a taxi with the information.”

He said at the beach he and Bundorin who were in uniform stood on a hill about 150 metres away from a blue-black four wheel drive vehicle parked there.

He said Yabson, in plain clothes and holding a gun moved to the vehicle to talk to the occupant. Some 15 minutes ,Nyarko arrived and stood with them on the hill.

“I did not see anything parked at the beach apart from the parked vehicle and also did not see the person who occupied the vehicle,” he told the court.

Asante said that while at the beach the vehicle started to move so he asked the rest to “cross” it at the Kpone township since according to him that is the only route the vehicle can use.

He said when they got to the Kpone Station “I felt thirsty so I decided to get some water from my room but when I returned, the taxi which brought us had sped off with Bundorin, Yabson and Nyarko in it.”

Asante told the court that when “Bundorin, who is his subordinate, returned later he told him that they did not find anything from that car.”

Cross-examined by Emmanuel Asabre Junior and Benard Ahiafor, counsel for Yabson and Bundorin, respectively, Asante said he did not know Asem Darke, popularly called Sheriff, the man believed to have taken the 76 parcels of cocaine away.

He said, “I do not know Darke, I have never met him before. I never saw anything at the beach. My colleagues did not give me any money or anything.”