Gov’t Lawyer Designate Lied Under Oath

Nana Yaw Osei, one of Gregory Afoko’s Advocates has accused Attorney General designate, Godfred Yeaboah-Dame of vending falsehood about his client on matters bordering the state’s decision to keep him after meeting his bail conditions as far back as March 2019.

Responding to why the State violated the bail granted Gregory Afoko, the former deputy Attorney General Godfred Dame told the Appointments Committee in the parliamentary chamber on Friday February 12, 2021 that Gregory Afoko was not denied bail as being speculated, rather he could not meet his bail conditions.

But Nana Yaw Osei, said he cannot fathom Mr. Dame’s motivation to peddle blatant lies under oath.

He said, Yeboah-Dame if approved, will be the Attorney General and head of the Bar Association, whose preoccupation and fidelity would be to the state and laws of the country. And to think that such a high-profile person could lie on camera before Parliament and by extension the whole world to justify a wrong-doing is scary.

Speaking to Kwabena Bobie-Ansah on Citizen Show on Accra FM, Lawyer Osei asked; ‘if Gregory didn’t meet his bail conditions as was wickedly and disingenuously narrated, then what compelled the Court to give an Order for Gregory to be brought for the bail to be executed’?

According to Nana Yaw Osei, Gregory Afoko met his bail conditions but was maliciously denied same, forcing the Court to order the Ghana Police Service to produce Gregory Afoko to execute the bail.

He said, angered by the Prosecutors refusal to produce Gregory for the execution of the bail as ordered, the court cited the then Inspector General of Police (IGP) David Asante-Appeatu, and Director of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo Danquah for contempt of court for their gross disobedience of the court orders.

Contradicting Godfred, Nana Yaw Osei said, the Attorney General’s office actually appealed against the bail at the Court of Appeal. He said but for some strange reasons, that application is pending.

Gregory remained in custody after being granted a Five Hundred Thousand cedis (GH¢500,000) bail with two sureties by a high court in March 2019, and meeting same.

The blatant snub of the court decision by the State received wide-range of condemnation by Rights activists and Civil Society Groups.

Occupy Ghana, Amnesty International Ghana, and enthusiasts of human rights and law roundly condemned the action by the Police authority to calculatingly disregard the orders of a court of competent jurisdiction.

The Executive Director of Amnesty International-Ghana, Robert Akoto Amoafo, is on record to have said the failure of the country to stop the manhandling of suspects is an affront to human rights.

“This is a mockery of human rights and a mockery of the human rights system as a country. We are very concerned about that. Already, Ghana is recording low in ensuring that it protects people who are arrested and incarcerated,” he said in a media interview.

Mr. Amoafo held that development does not augur well for the judicial processes in the country.

“If you have a law in our logbook that simply says that if a person is granted bail, the bail must be respected. In this case, the bail was not respected. The person was kept all the period when he was supposed to be on bail, and all of a sudden, the person’s bail was rescinded by another court. This is a mockery of our legal system and a worry for us as a human rights advocate”, he explained.

Gregory Afoko is one of two persons standing trial on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and murder for allegedly killing a former Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alhaji Adams Mahama, in 2015.

The family of Gregory Afoko two years ago fingered the Executive arm of Akufo-Addo’s government of having a hand in the continuous incarceration of their son, for a crime he didn’t commit.

The family can’t accept the reality that after four-years of rigorous trial, and the state calling as many as fourteen (14) witnesses, they still find it pleasurable to restart the whole trial at fresh when the judgement of the jury was due in weeks.

Spokesman of The Ayieta family, Robert Atong Asekabta, pondered why government filed “nolle prosequi” after calling fourteen witnesses.

Gregory Afoko is still been kept after four-years on the basis that the state wants to trial him an absconded suspect that was apprehended in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire.

Lawyer Osei, believed the continuous holding of Gregory Afoko is politically induced. For him, the only reason government is keeping Gregory is because of their undiluted hatred for his elder brother Paul Awentami Afoko, a former National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party.