By William Yaw Owusu
Friday October 19, 2007
The Court of Appeal will on November 1, decide whether or not to grant bail pending appeal to Daniel Kwasi Abodakpi, the convicted Member of Parliament for Keta.
Abodakpi was jailed 10 years by an Accra Fast Track High Court presided over by Justice Stephen Twerefuor Farkye of the Court of Appeal on February 5 for causing financial loss to the state.
He was said to have illegally authorised the payment of 400,000 dollars to Dr. Frederick Owusu Boadu, a Ghanaian consultant in Texas, United States from the TIP fund.
The eight million dollar TIP fund was set up by the NDC government to promote the non-traditional export sector.
He was originally charged with Victor Selormey, former Deputy Financial Minister who died in the course of the trial.
Abodakpi 57, filed an application for bail pending appeal at the trial court but it was dismissed by Justice Farkye.
He filed a fresh application for bail pending appeal which was moved on October 11 by his counsel, Tony Lithur before Justices B.A. Aryeetey, Samual Marful-Sau and Mariama Owusu.
Mr. Lithur argued that in convicting his client the trial judge gave no consideration to his defence.
He explained, “Abodakpi did not only deny the charges preferred against him, but also led evidence to create doubt in the prosecution’s case which the judge failed to consider”.
He said failure to give due consideration to the defense of Abodakpi represented “a clear error on the face of the record which makes the judgment barred in law.”
Opposing the bail application, Getrude Aikins, Acting Director of Public Prosecution said the order holding Abodakpi is valid and can only be set aside by a higher court of competent jurisdiction.
She said Abodakpi’s argument that the judgment was wrong could only be corrected by the appellate courts adding, “Unless it can be demonstrated that the judgment is indefensible, the court cannot grant bail to the applicant.”
She invited the court not to entertain issues of the substantive appeal in the bail application since what Abodakpi sought to do was not a judicial review.
“I will apply that the substantive appeal be listed so that we can quickly go into the records to hear the appeal and have the matter determined.”
“The conviction must be sustained, having regard to the records,” she submitted.
Ms Aikins further argued that the trial court’s judgment did not occasion any miscarriage of justice saying, “Grant of bail is discretionary. We can go into the appeal so that justice is seen to be done to both parties and not the application alone.”
She said, “There was a material evidence before he was found guilty. There is more than enough evidence on the record to support the conviction.”
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