Ndego asks Abass to provide air ticket

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday August 24, 2007
BEN Ndego, operations officer of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), has asked to be provided with an air ticket to enable him to return home t o testify in a cocaine case before the Accra Fast Track High Court.

Mr Ndego, who is on interdiction over the loss of five kilogrammes of cocaine, is currently in the United Kingdom pursuing further studies.

He was subpoenaed with Colonel Isaac Kwasi Akuoko (rtd), Executive Secretary of the NACOB who is also on interdiction, at the instance of Alhaji Issah Abass, one of the two men on trial for narcotic offences.

Colonel Akuoko testified before the court on August 14.

When the case was called yesterday the trial judge, Justice Jones Dotse, of the court of Appeal, announced that the court had received a letter dated August 23, 2007 from solicitors of Ndego and asked the registrar of the court to read the contents.

The registrar said the letter was written and signed by Derry and Co. legal practitioners, consultants and notary public.

In the said letter, Ndego admitted that his attention had been drawn o the subpoena issued by counsel for Abass and published in a daily newspapers but said he could not attend to testify because he was outside, the courts jurisdiction.


He, however, said he was willing to appear before the court to appear before the court to testify, if his travelling expenses from the UK to Ghana will be borne by those inviting him.

After the registrar read the letter, the judge asked Mohammed Attah, counsel for Abass for his views on the new development.

In response, Mr Attah said: “We see this as an attempt to prevent us from bringing Ndego. Although on interdiction, he is still an officer of the NACOB.”

The judge said it was out of place for counsel to make such submission because it was the defence which was insisting on getting Ndego to testify.

Mr Attah then asked the court to order NACOB to recall Ndego for the purposes of the trial, but Justice Dotse again declined, saying “it is a request which the court cannot grant. The court has no jurisdiction over NACOB with respect to the interdiction of Mr Ndego.”

Counsel then asked the court to adjourn proceedings to enable his team to confer with solicitors of Ndego on the way forward. The court obliged and adjourned to August 29.

It court asked Mr Attah to come back with “concrete” information on Ndego. “or the court will deem it that you have closed your case.”

Abass is charged together with Kwabena Amaning, popularly called Tagor, with having knowledge about 76 parcels of cocaine but got missing from a fishing vessel that docked at the breakwaters of the Tema Port in April last year.

Tagor and Abass 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 case of 77 parcels of cocaine and another quantity of the substance, seized from a house at East Legon in Accra in November 2005.

The setting up of the committee came about as result of a meeting allegedly held at the residence of ACP Kofi Boakye, then Director of Police operations, with four persons including Tagor and Abass, which was secretly recorded by an unknown person.

Tagor is facing four counts of conspiracy, engaging in prohibited business related to narcotic drugs and supply of narcotic drugs.

Abass, on the other hand, 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 currently in prison custody.

Before Mr Ndego’s issue came up, a man called Kingsley Manteaw, popularly called Golu whose name Abass mentioned as having helped the police to arrest some suspects involved in the importation of the 77 parcels of cocaine, also testified at the instance of Abass.

Manteaw who is in police custody for the murder of Nii Kwatei Quartey a retired PWD official recently told the court that he and another witness had led the police to Ada where Sheriff Asem Darke the police’s most wanted man in connection with the importation of the cocaine was attending a funeral.

He told the court that the police saw Sheriff at Ada but left him off the hook.