Nayele Ametefe is serving eight years in a UK jail
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Information
gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that the case of the six persons arrested
in Ghana in connection with the 12 kilos cocaine that found its way into the
United Kingdom, leading to the arrest of Nayele Ametefe aka Angel, will be
discontinued very soon.
Angel,
aka Ruby Adu-Gyamfi aka Irene Tawiah, aka Ruby Appiah, is currently serving
eight years and eight months jail term in the UK.
The six suspects
on trial are Abiel Ashitey Armah, Foreign Service Officer in-charge of the VVIP
Lounge at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA); Ahmed Abubakar, Protocol Officer
and Theophilius Kissi, a civil servant. They have all been charged for
allegedly abetting Nayele Ametefe in the first case by allowing her to use the
VVIP lounge.
The rest
are Sadala Nuhu, Nana Akua Amponsah and Alhaji Dawood Mohammed.
Sources
said investigations into the matter - that dominated the political discourse in
recent times - had long been concluded but because a powerful National
Democratic Congress (NDC) government official has allegedly been implicated,
the Attorney General’s Department cannot push for full trial.
Thirteen
persons had earlier been arrested with their photographs widely published in
the state newspapers.
Ruby ‘Girls’
Sadala
Nuhu and Nana Akua Amponsah - both businesswomen - who the prosecution says had
travelled with Nayele Ametefeh but managed to escape from London back to Accra
when she (Ametefeh) was arrested at the Heathrow Airport, are facing a charge
of conspiracy.
Alhaji
Dawood Mohammed is also being charged with abetment.
He
allegedly made telephone calls to the boss of the VVIP section, Abiel Ashitey
Armah, to facilitate the processing and embarkation of Ruby and her ‘girls,’
Sadala and Nana Akua, on the BA flight through the VVIP.
Pandora’s Box
Some of
the accused persons are said to be ready to open the ‘Pandora’s box’ by dropping
the name of the senior government official involved, should the state proceed
to prosecute the case. It is being alleged that some of the suspects are peeved
that their assets have been frozen by the state - a claim that is yet to be
verified by DAILY GUIDE.
Sources
say indeed, it was the said NDC guru who personally dropped Ruby and her girls
at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) in Accra on the evening of November
9, 2014.
It is
alleged the convicted Ruby and the said NDC chieftain were in such furious
argument that the drug baroness left her travelling passport at her East Legon
residence and one of the two girls on trial had to rush back and retrieve the
document.
Frantic Calls
Furthermore,
a British intelligence source also said when Ruby was arrested, the said NDC
top official’s telephone number was found on the baroness’ mobile handset as one
of the last persons she had called before the BA078 flight left Accra.
Additionally,
the same NDC top official was the first person Ruby had called frantically on
arrival at London Heathrow when the plane touched down on November 10 and she
was intercepted by the British law enforcers.
End Of Matter
“If they
go ahead with the prosecution, the NDC top man’s name is likely to pop up
during the trial and that is going to embarrass the government so they are
ending the matter,” a credible source told DAILY GUIDE.
“They are
just using the legal route of adjournment to delay the trial so that court
would technically endorse it by discharging them upon persistent demand by the
suspects’ lawyers. The investigation has long been concluded but they cannot do
anything to the suspects,” the source claimed.
Frank Davies consel
for Abiel Ashitey said his client was only “a poor officer caught in the web of
circumstances.”
“He got a call and one Alhaji Dawood requested
that he had visitors who are accessing the VVIP lounge and that he should grant
them the necessary courtesy. Stretching the argument, one will say that he
might have exercised some little bit of wrong discretion because those persons
are not people who should access the VVIP lounge,” he said adding that does not
make him a criminal.
Mr Davies is convinced his client and
others “are being held for a crime they have not committed” because Nayele
never mentioned the names of persons undergoing trial in Ghana as her
accomplices.
According
to Mr. Davies, his client has been “caught in a web of rather irritating
circumstances”.
Prior Warning
The trial
judge Francis Obiri has already on January 21, made it clear to the prosecution
led by Penelope Ann Mamattah, a Chief State Attorney that if the state
continues with their “we are still investigating”
or “we need more time” attitude, the court will have no option than to strike
out the case for want of prosecution.
Feet Dragging
The body
language of both the prosecution and the defence since the commencement of the
case showed clearly that the prosecution case was going to collapse in the long
run.
Chief
State Attorney Penelope Mamattah prosecuting has persistently told the court
that investigations into the matter had still not been completed and needed
more time even though the Ruby, the lady at the centre of the drug business had
been jailed for eight years, eight months with no mentioning of any suspected
accomplices except her lawyer’s closing remarks that she was connected with
influential people in government.
In all
the previous sittings the prosecution had asked for more time from the court to
do further investigations into the matter.
She once
said “The impression is being given that we are already on trial and it is
because of what some of the defence counsel have been saying,” she said.
She
insisted that the case was still under investigation, adding “we have not yet
taken decision to go to full trial.”
High Court Case
The Chief
State Attorney had said that under normal circumstance it was the police that
was required to lead the prosecution of the case at the preliminary stage but
because of the high profile nature of the case, the Attorney General’s
Department had to come in.
She had
also said the Circuit Court was not the appropriate forum for full trial to
commence saying “in the event the case is going to full trial, it will go to
the High Court and that will be determined whether after all the investigations
are completed.”
NDC Propaganda
There are
serious indications by reliable sources that the government wanted to ‘appease’
the public by rounding up a number of suspects and ‘mounting’ a prosecution, to
appease the public over the frenzy that erupted when the story first broke.
The
ruling party’s communication team members have been hopping from one radio
station to another trying to tout the
government’s effort to fight the narcotic drugs menace which their critics have
described as a sham.
The issue
took the usual political twist with recent remarks by the party’s General
Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah’s that the opposition NPP were involved in the
Ruby cocaine scandal.
The NPP
had earlier queried the NDC ability to fight the cocaine menace and replied in
a similar measure to the General secretary’s pronouncements describing the NDC as ‘dazed’ by the Ruby
cocaine scandal.
VVIP Change
DAILY
GUIDE gathered that a certain Colonel Boamponsem has
now been appointed to oversee activities at the VVIP section of the airport.
Ruby and
her alleged gang of drug smugglers indeed used the highly restricted Very Very
Important Personality (VVIP) section of the KIA reserved for the President and
his top ministers to board flight BA078 to London on November 9.
Sources
say the NACOB officials did not let Ruby place her handbag on the detectors due
to ‘order from above’ and that was how come the machines could not track the
cocaine weighing 12.5kg.
Simulation exercise
However,
to avoid political backlash and international embarrassment, the NDC government
hurriedly organized a simulation exercise taking the suspects to the crime
scene in an attempt to make it appear as if the suspects had used the VIP
instead.
During
the November 27, 2014 so-called simulation exercise, drama unfolded when a BNI
official took the ladies to the exit of the VIP section of Ghana’s only
international airport known as the staff gate.
In the
process, one of the ladies protested that was not the place they used while
embarking on that abortive journey to London on November 9, but an airport
staff immediately came in and claimed it was the same place and that the place
had changed due to renovation works ongoing over there.
