Abass (left) and Tagor (right) attending court from Prisons custody
By William Yaw Owusu
ALHAJI Issah Abass, one of two men standing trial in connection with the missing cocaine from the MV Benjamin vessel, yesterday told an Accra Fast Track High Court that all he told the Justice Georgina Wood Committee last year, were lies.
Abass and Kwabena Amaning, popularly called Tagor, were among 14 people recommended for prosecution by the Justice Georgina Wood Committee set up by the Ministry of the Interior last year to investigate the loss of 77 parcels of cocaine from the vessel at Tema Port and another quantity of the substance seized from a house at East Legon in Accra in November 2005.
Seventy-seven parcels of cocaine were allegedly brought into the country on April 26, last year, but 76 allegedly got lost at the break waters of the Tema Port before the security agencies could intercept them.
Tagor is facing four counts of conspiracy, engaging in prohibited business related to narcotic drugs and supply of narcotic drugs, while Abass is charged with three counts of conspiracy, engaging in prohibited business related to narcotic drugs and supply of narcotic drugs.
The two have pleaded not guilty and are in prison custody.
When Ms Gertrude Aikins, acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), took her turn to cross-examine Abass, she made reference to portions of the committee’s report.
Abass then told the court: “I was not open to the committee.”
He said even though he swore an oath, he told the committee that he did not know who had recorded a meeting he and four others had with ACP Kofi Boakye about the missing parcels of cocaine.
Abass, in his evidence to the court last week, revealed that he did the recording.
“I was doing all this because NACOB had promised to rescue me, but I now feel let down,” he said.
Abass further told the court that he did not voluntarily go to ACP Boakye’s house and said it was not true that the participants at the meeting were already seated when he got there. In his evidence-in-chief, he had said the others were already seated and he was the last to join them.
“I am not generally an untruthful person,” he told the packed court.
He claimed that Mr Ben Ndego of NACOB sought his assistance and said he acted as an informant of the NACOB and did not want ACP Boakye to know.
“Tagor and I are not in drug business. I did not introduce or train Tagor in cocaine business. We met at ACP Boakye’s house as brothers,” he said..
Abass said the statements such as ‘let’s find the goods”, and “we have spent a great deal” were part of the bait to get ACP Boakye to talk.
Earlier, led in evidence by Mohammed Attah, his counsel, Abass told the court that the police saw Asem Darke, also known as Sheriff, the man suspected to have imported the 77 parcels of cocaine, but they let him off the hook..
He claimed that long after the cocaine had been off loaded at the Kpone Beach, and based on information from two men he knew, a police team, led by Inspector Justice Nana Oppong, the initial investigator of the case who is currently on interdiction, stormed a funeral grounds at Ada.
Abass gave the names of the two men who helped the police to locate Sheriff and his accomplices as Kolu and Nana Yaw.
He said “the police reneged on their promise to give them 40 million Cedis for providing the information.”
Abass said when he was arrested after testifying at the Justice Georgina Wood Committee, Inspector Oppong and some police officers came to him.
He said: “The police promised that if I help them to get Sheriff they will release me.
“They took me to my office in Tema where I called Kolu and Nana Yaw to assist them because the two men know Tema very well. Initially, they were reluctant but later agreed to assist after I had asked my lawyer to give them 2 million Cedis.
“Inspector Oppong and the team took me and the two around Tema to locate the house of all those involved in the importation of the cocaine brought in by the Adede II vessel and I was left in my office in the presence of one policeman.”
Abass further claimed that it was Mr Ndego of NACOB who told him that the vessel’s name had been changed to Benjamin.
He claimed that based on the information provided by the two men, the police were able to locate the policemen who are now standing trial for allowing Sheriff to escape.
He claimed that the police bought the two men new mobile phones but when the men asked why the police did not arrest Sheriff at the funeral grounds, the phones were taken from them.
“I felt let down by NACOB and the police,” Abass stated.
He told the court that at the meeting in ACP Boakye’s house he hid the recorder under his belt and at a point left the scene to check whether it was recording. “After everything, I drove straight to NACOB to deliver it,” he said.
Abass said he first went to Ndego’s office from where they went to Col Isaac Akuoko (rtd), former Executive Secretary of NACOB, and he handed over the tape in the presence of Sgt. Edward Asante who has testified in the case.
Abass also said when the news broke , ACP Boakye called him from Germany during the 2006 World Cup to enquire from him if he recorded the meeting. Alhaji Moro, one of those who were at the meeting, also called Tagor on the instructions of ACP Boakye to find out about the subject matter.
“From then on I started getting death threats on my phone so I contacted ACP Jonathan Yakubu, the them Tema Regional Commander who advised me to report the matter to the police, which I did at the Tema Community Two Police Station.”
He said the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) also locked him up for five days before he was handed over to the police “who asked me to write a statement concerning Sheriff and MV Benjamin.”
“I did not tell the committee that I recorded the conversation because I thought NACOB will rescue me at the appropriate time.”
Sitting continues today.
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