[ 2021-03-14 ]

Phone records of Kumasi kidnappers land in Court
A pendrive containing the call recordings of four
persons on trial for their involvement in the
kidnapping of two Canadian ladies in Kumasi in the
Ashanti Regional in 2019 has landed in court as
exhibit.

The pendrive contains the digital forensic
examination conducted on 10 different mobile
phones of the accused persons which was submitted
to the Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal
Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana
Police Service by the Anti-Armed Robbery Unit.

The pendrive and the report analyzing contents on
the pendrive was tendered in evidence at the Accra
High Court hearing the case by Detective Sergeant
Sylvester Essel, a Forensic Analyst with Ghana
Police Service who carried out the examination.

The police said they examined the phones and SIM
cards and other related numbers that were used
during the ensuing kidnapping which sparked public
outrage and attracted the attention international
media.

According to the investigators, they were able to
retrieve audio recordings which were yet to be
played by the court at the next court date.

Main Trial

Sampson Aghalor, 27, computer engineer; Elvis
Ojiyorwe, 27, businessman and Jeff Omarsa, 28,
tiler – all Nigerians – and their Ghanaian
counterpart, Yussif Yakubu, 28, are facing three
counts of conspiracy, kidnapping and unlawful
imprisonment.

The kidnapping of the two ladies sparked public
outrage in early June 2019 and a National Security
operation led to the dramatic release of both
ladies and subsequent arrests of eight suspects on
June 11, 2019.

Four out of the eight persons who were initially
arrested in connection with the kidnapping were
discharged as the prosecution decided to drop all
charges against them after reviewing the
investigations.

Digital Analysis

Led in his evidence in chief by Winifred Sarpong,
a Principal State Attorney, Detective Sergeant
Essel told the court that on February 18, 2020 he
was on duty at the Cyber Crime Unit at the CID
Headquarters when Detective Chief Inspector Mathew
Anokye brought in a sealed brown envelope
containing 10 different makes of phones and
attached were a court order and a request form.

He said the mobile phones comprised Vivo and an
iPhone labeled Sampson Aghalor, an Infinix phone
labeled Yussif Yakubu, a Tecno phone labeled Jeff
Omarsa and some other Samsung and iPhones which
were not labeled.

He told the court that the request attached to the
phones was asking the Cyber Crime Unit to conduct
digital forensic examination on the 10 different
devices, specifically to determine whether the
users of the device communicated among
themselves.

He said it also requested an examination into
whether there were any social media engagements in
the form of communication among the device owners
as well as establish whether there were any images
that would support the case under investigations.

He said he did the analysis and issued a report to
that effect and attached a pendrive which
contained extracted audio files which were call
recordings and images from the mobile phones.

He prayed the court to admit the report as well as
the attached pendrive into evidence but the move
was objected to by Olive Atsu Abada, counsel for
Aghalor as well as Dankwa, Omarsa and Yakubu, who
said the document was not signed by the witness
seeking to tender it.

The objection was opposed by Mrs. Sarpong, who
argued that the document was relevant to the case,
and added that the witness worked under somebody
from an institution of high ranking and although
he happened to be the one who worked on the
devices and generated the report, he couldn't have
signed in his own capacity since the report was
going to be forwarded to the anti-armed robbery
unit which made the request.

The court presided over by Justice Lydia Osei
Marfo overruled the objection and admitted the
report and the attached pendrive for the audio
recordings to be played next time.

The case was adjourned to March 22, 2021.

Source - Daily Guide

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