Top UK Prosecutor visits SFO

Mr Starmer is the Head of the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK


By William Yaw Owusu


Teusady March 2, 2010
As part of effort to combat organized crime, the Director of Public Prosecution (Crown Prosecution Service) of the United Kingdom and Wales, Keir Starmer, QC has led a high level delegation into the country to get first hand information on the operations of some security agencies.

He visited the headquarters of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in Accra yesterday, where the delegation discussed common areas of co-operation in the fight against organized crime.

Mr. Starmer said the fight against organized crime such as narcotics drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, terrorism, cyber fraud among others could not be handled by a single country saying “it has become sophisticated and an increasing menace to all societies.”

He said “we are trying to keep up with the times in the fight against organized crime. We are determined to take the fight to them to ensure the safety of the public.”

Mr. Starmer further said “It is a real opportunity to be in Ghana .We are happy to collaborate with the security agencies in this country and I am confident we can make joint progress.”

He said currently, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) handles about 1.1 million cases annually with 9000 staff and promised the UK’s assistance to help countries such as Ghana in the fight against organized crime.

Justice J.C. Amonoo Monnie, a retired Court of Appeal judge and the current Board Chairman of the SFO said once organized crime knew no boundaries it was important to regularly share experiences and ideas with other countries to be able to bring organized crime under control.

He said the Economic and Organized Crime Bill which is currently before Parliament when passed would empower the SFO to “expand its mandate in the fight against serious fraud and other related crimes.”

Biadela Kwami Mortey Akpadzi, Executive Secretary of the SFO said organized crime had become sophisticated and the SFO needed to remain focused in order to it, stressing “the mode of committing this type of crime keeps changing.”

He said the SFO is now going through a restructuring exercise and was in the process to recruit more personnel to fight serious fraud and organized crime.

Ms. Gertrude Aikins, Ghana’s Director of Public Prosecution said organized crime is not limited to Ghana alone and it needed commitment to fight it.

She said “we have solicited for assistance from the UK government in the area of organized crime prevention and they have graciously accepted to assist us.”

Roger Coventry, Head of Governance and Justice Programme at the British High Commission in Accra said the British government is collaborating with its Ghanaian counterpart in the area of “specific intelligence training” and also help to build the capacities of the such agencies.