[ 2012-05-19 ]

Court Threatens To Strike Out Tehoda's Case
The Accra Circuit Court hearing the
cocaine-turn-soda case involving DSP Gifty
Mawuenyegah Tehoda has threatened to strike out
the case if the state continues to show no
interest in the matter.

The court, presided over by Mr Francis Obiri,
ordered the Attorney-General’s Department to make
an appearance on the next adjourned date or have
the case struck out.

“If your case is here and you don’t send any
letter or anyone but you sit in your office
without respecting the court, I will strike it
out,” he warned.

Mr Obiri gave the warning after Mr E.A. Vordaogu,
counsel for Tehoda, had declared his intention to
file a motion for the court to acquit and
discharge his client because neither the
investigator nor the prosecutor appeared to have
any interest in the case.

Mr Vordaogu catalogued a number of dates on which
the prosecution was not in court, saying the most
recent was April 20, 2011 when the prosecution
failed to appear in court and the case was
adjourned to April 27, 2012.

On that date, he submitted, the prosecution again
failed to appear, only to come later in the day to
ask for May 18, 2012, without recourse to the
defence team.

“We are here today and the prosecution is not
here. This is the 11th time the matter has to be
adjourned at the behest of the prosecution. It
appears the army worm on rampage in the Ketu
District of the Volta Region has engulfed the AG’s
office,” he said.

The defence, he stated, would file a motion not
for the case to be struck out but for the accused
person to be acquitted and discharged, since it
appeared the A-G’s Office was not interested in
continuing the case.

“I will make available documents to the court to
show the number of times the prosecution has
failed to appear in court,” he said.

“This is a matter in which the accused has been
denigrated too much. It is for the A-G, if he has
the evidence, to prosecute her. The A-G’s Office
has run out of excuses and become a fugitive who
is running here and there from its own shadow,” he
added.

A State Attorney who was in court, but not in
connection with the case, pledged to inform the
Principal State Attorney, Mr Rexford Wiredu, of
the developments and explained that the failure of
the A-G’s Office to appear in court was probably
due to the fact that the case was still being
investigated, since it involved narcotics.

But the judge objected to the excuse and insisted
that the prosecution come to court on the
adjourned date, saying it was now a convention in
his court that such cases would be struck out if
the prosecution failed to appear in court on four
or five consecutive times.

DSP Tehoda is facing one count of abetment of
crime, to wit, undertaking an activity relating to
narcotic drugs, contrary to Section 56 (c) and 3
(2) of PNDCL 236, Narcotic Drugs (Control,
Enforcement and Sanctions) Act 1990, for her
alleged role in the 1,020 grammes of cocaine which
turned into sodium carbonate.

She was released on bail by the Accra Fast Track
High Court on February 14, 2012 pending trial at
the circuit court.

The court admitted her to bail in the sum of
GH¢100,000, with two sureties, one of which was to
be justified.

Source - Daily Graphic

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