Tagor (Left)and Abass (Right) being escorted to prison
By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday November 29, 2007
AFTER a exactly a year, the trial of Kwabena Amaning, alias Tagor and Issah Abbas, two leading figures in what came to be known as the MV Benjamin cocaine scandal, ended yesterday with the Fast Track High Court handing down a total of a 30 year jail term.
Tagor and Abass are to serve 15 years each in jail and the sentence takes retrospective effect from August 3, 2006 when they were arrested.
In a rather dramatic twist the Presiding Judge, Justice Jones Victor Dotse, surprised everybody including both the prosecution and defence, when he announced at about 9.36 am that he was ready with his judgement.
He had previously adjourned proceedings until yesterday November 28, for the court to fix a date for judgement but after a brief meeting with defence counsel and the prosecutions in the courtroom he announced that “I will give judgement in this case at 11:30 am”.
It came as a big surprise to the audience including scores of journalists some of who especially those in the print media started making frantic phone calls to get their photographers to position themselves outside the court’s premise to take photographs of Tagor and Abass.
Tagor had been charged with four counts of conspiracy, engaging in prohibited business related to narcotic drugs, but the court found him guilty on two counts of conspiracy and buying of narcotic drugs.
He was acquitted and discharged on two counts of supply of narcotic drugs.
The court held that the prosecution could not lead evidence to establish the guilt of Tagor on those two counts.
In the case of Abass, he was charged with three counts of conspiracy, engaging in prohibited business related to narcotic drugs and supply of narcotic drugs but was convicted on two counts of conspiracy and engaging in prohibited business related to narcotic drugs.
The court acquitted and discharged Abass on the count of supply of narcotic drugs because the prosecution could not lead enough evidence to establish his guilt.
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 a result of a meeting allegedly held at the residence of Assistant Commissioner of Police ACP Kofi Boakye, then Director of Police Operations, with four persons including Tagor and Abass, which was secretly rewarded by an unknown person. Abass later in evidence before the court claimed he recorded the proceedings.
However, the court did not order seizure of the numerous property including landed property, the vessels of Tagor and Abass which the prosecution tendered in evidence in the course of the trial.
The court’s reason was that the prosecution failed in establishing that the property belonged to Tagor and Abass even though the judge had admitted that he did not like the answers given by Tagor and Abass on the property issue.
Convicting the two on the charge of conspiracy, the court held “there is no doubt that a meeting was held at the residence of ACP Boakye in a cordial and brotherly manner and it was at this meeting that they agreed to look for the missing 76 parcels of cocaine to share. This is the extent to which they conspired.”
He said Tagor and Abass on the secret tape recording openly admitted undertaking an activity which was primarily geared towards the promotion of an enterprise related to narcotic drugs.
The court said Tagor had confessed openly that he credited 200 kilogrammes of cocaine which he arranged payment of 100 kilograms in Holland while Abass also confessed dealing in cocaine previously.
The court said the defence offered by the convicts that they were bating Kofi Boakye to talk could not be accepted because they made genuine confessions adding. “How can someone who claimed to be bating another implicate himself to this extent?”
He said the evidence given by Colonel Isaac K. Akuoku (Rtd), the former Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board who testified at the instance of Abass collapsed the convicts alibi of bating.
During his evidence, Col Akuoku (Rtd) denied ever knowing Abass.
Turning to the prosecution’s inability to charge ACP Boakye the judge said “I am not personally comfortable with the Attorney-General’s decision not to put ACP Boakye on trial because he made serious statements on the tape and should have been called upon to answer.”
“I am not saying this out of malice. I know the decision to prosecute is the discretion of the Attorney General but the silence on ACP Boakye is not the best.”
“I do not also have anything against the prosecution for not using ACP Boakye as a witness because whatever he could have told the court was said by Acheampong who was also at the meeting but ACP Boakye was very fit for the prosecution to try.”
“ACP Boakye was not tried and only time will tell if the AG will ever put him before a court.”
Regarding the initial investigator Chief Inspector Justice Nana Oppong, the judge said “he did a shoddy investigations” and also added that the then Greater Accra Regional Police Crime Officer, Bright Oduro did not act professionally at all.”
He called on the Police Administration to always investigate the backgrounds of police investigators before assigning them to high profile cases saying “there were several lapses in the initial investigations at the regional level but when the Police Headquarters took over, Chief Inspector Adaba acted timely.
The court further said the attempt by Abass to link Mr. Adaba to those officers who had gone to Ada to arrest Sheriff Asem Darke, owner of the cocaine, was unfortunate.
The court held the Chief Inspector Adaba was able to convince the court about the terminologies used in the drug trade saying “words such as ‘goods’, ‘business’, ‘keys’ or ‘nsafoa’ heard on the tape referred to the cocaine business.”
Turning to those who analysed and examined the contents on the tape the court held “no defence counsel was able to contradict the evidence by Professor J.P. French, Phillip Harrison and Professor Kofi Agyekum. I found competence, experience and credibility in all their work.”
“They did an excellent job. Whenever they could not attribute or assign any person to any speaker they were very frank to the court. The tape is very authentic. It was not contradicted.”
Tagor was in clutches when he appeared before the court yesterday and when asked by the judge he said “I was playing football in prison when I got injured,” to which Justice Dotse said “have my sympathy.”
The judge took about four hours to deliver the judgement.
Tagor, Abass, Acheampong, Ababio and Yaw Billah were arrested on August 3, soon after testifying before the Justice Georgina Wood Committee on suspicion that they had knowledge in the missing 76 parcels of cocaine brought into the country by the vessel M.V. Benjamin.
The two men, together with Kwabena Acheampong and Victor Kisseh, also called Yaw Billah earlier on November 23, 2006 had been discharged by an Accra circuit court after the Attorney General (AG) filed a “Nolle Prosequi” indicating its unwillingness to pursue the case, but Tagor and Abass were re-arrested on the orders of the AG and charged at the Fast Track High Court with fresh charges.
Acheampong was brought to court but was later turned into a prosecution witness.
Two others, Kwadwo Ababio and Alhaji Moro who were arrested together with the above mentioned were also not tried.
The facts as presented by Ms Gertrude Aikins, Chief State Attorney, are that on April 26, the MV Benjamin vessel, also called Adede 2 anchored at the Tema Harbour where 76 out of 77 parcels of cocaine were off loaded into two canoes which carried them to the Kpone Beach, near Tema.
“The news of the arrival of the cocaine spread like wildfire in the underworld and the security agencies started investigating the matter,” she said.
Ms Aikins told the court that the then Assistant Commissioner of Police in-charge of Operations, Mr. Kofi Boakye, invited the accused persons to his residence at Kanda, Accra, in connection with the missing parcels.
At the said meeting, the accused voluntarily confessed to their dealings in narcotic drugs and even boasted about previous activities relating to narcotic drugs and further settled old scores and disputes.
In the process, they openly confessed that they had purchased, supplied, paid for, certified, credited and distributed drugs in and outside the country.
The confessions, Ms Aikins told the court, were recorded.
The accused at the said meeting also agreed to locate the 76 parcels of cocaine, seize and share it in furtherance of their business of dealing, promoting and establishing narcotic drugs because the quantity brought by the MV Benjamin was too much for one person to enjoy it alone.
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