Defense opposes request to re-open Ya Na trial

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday December 3, 2010
Lawyers of the 15 people standing trial for the murder of Ya Na Yakubu Andani II, overlord of Dagbon say they are opposing an application by the state to re-open the case to enable them call more witnesses.

After failing on three occasions to present more witnesses, the prosecution on November 5, 2010, officially said it had closed its case in the trial prompting the defense to indicate to the court that it intends to file motion of “Submission of No case”, a request which was granted by the court.

However, on November 23, 2010 the prosecution made a u-turn and announced to the court that it had filed a motion on November 18, 2010 to ask the court to allow them to call more witnesses to testify in the case but the prosecution led by Phillip Addison told the court that the motion filed by the prosecution did not disclose enough information for them to reply.

The prosecution led by Ms. Gertrude Aikins, Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) then agreed to file supplementary affidavit to provide more information to enable the prosecution to reply and the court presided over by Justice EK Ayebi of the Court of Appeal adjourned the case until November 29, 2010 but when the case was called, the prosecution said it had decided to withdraw the motion altogether and filed new processes, this time around very detailed, to get the case re-opened.

The prosecution says it wants to re-open the case because the police has found a secret audio recordings of the Alhassan Braimah, the sixth accused person making confessions to the effect that he (Braimah) killed the Ya Na.

In the new affidavit, the prosecution said it wants to bring five more witnesses including Nsor, an ex-security officer residing in Togo who took custody of the recording; Yakubu Mahamadu aka Anafo who did the recording; Mohammed Sumaila the man who translated the content on the secret tape; Robert Ayalingo, the officer in charge of the case and Professor John Peter French a forensic consultant specializing in the analysis of digital and magnetic recordings, speech and sound.

In the additional summary of evidence, the prosecution says Nsor, Anafo and Braimah were all Dagbon youth who were once trained in weapons handling in Togo in the 1990s to protect the Ya Na against Konkomba aggression.

Interestingly, none of new witnesses were included on the list of prospective witnesses presented by the prosecution before the trial commenced.

Daily Guide has learnt that Ben Nsor Atia was one of the 40 person arrested by the security agencies early this year in connection with the case but was left off the hook after the police had conducted identification and screening exercise.

The content of the purported confession statement which is urging the prosecution to re-open the case is among other things: “Father you trained us…the chief came to kill us and we killed him and cut off his head.”

At the hearing yesterday, Mr. Addison said the defense team has filed affidavit to oppose the prosecution’s request to re-open the case but because a copy of the motion was not on the court’s docket they would need an adjournment to make the process complete.

The DPP did not object counsel’s request and the court adjourned proceedings until Wednesday December 8, 2010, when the motion will be moved by the prosecution.