Legal practitioner and political analyst, Martin Kpebu, has stated that it is high time the Office of the Special Prosecutor put an end to its political gimmicks and start walking the talk because Ghanaians are highly interested in Ken Ofori-Atta’s case which involves high-profile personalities of the previous administration.
“Ken Ofori-Atta had a lot of time to report since his surgery was due in March but was instructed by the OSP to report in June. It was later revealed that his surgery which was supposed to come on in May was canceled and his legal team didn’t discuss the way forward with the OSP.
I can tell you from experience that in Europe, when a scheduled surgery wouldn’t come off, you would be alerted 2 to 3 days before the due date.
Ghanaians want Ofori-Atta to be held accountable for making too much money during the previous administration”, he said on TV3’s Key Points program, June 7.
He indicated that the OSP has other options available to him to explore under the article 30 of the criminal act. He mentioned that the OSP should have engaged the former minister long ago either through online meetings or engaging the lawyers of the accused minister to speed up the prosecution process.
In addition to dismissing the Special Prosecutor’s assertions that the accused cannot dictate how their organization should function, he noted that the OSP is not conducting the case in the best possible way and that Kissi Agyebeng should be subject to interrogation.
Kpebu asserted that the OSP could have interacted with the former minister via video conferences, requested documents, and other pertinent information to facilitate its investigations and further indicated that the OSP can activate the mutual legal assistance statute, enabling the OSP to issue an arrest order and advocate for his extradition. All viable options are sanctioned by law, according to him.
“You have lost time because it is not neither here nor there to even say Mr. Ken can’t determine how the OSP should work. Time is not on our side and the accused can even decide not to confess when extradited to Ghana”.
However, Samuel Appiah Darko, Director of Strategy, Research and Communication seems not to agree with the assertions of lawyer Martin Kpebu insisted that Mr. Ofori-Atta should not be treated as an accused since he has not been tried in court. He explained further that the former government official has not been arrested yet and so all the suggestions made by Kpebu cannot be applied.
He also shot down the idea of Mr. Ofori-Atta being tried in absentia should he fail to cooperate stressing that the former minister can only be subjected to it when he has disruptive behaviour to obstruct court proceedings. He cited the case of Wontumi where he was arrested by EOCO to answer questions pertaining to some fraudulent activities he is alleged to have been part of.
Medical Report
Samuel Darko stated that Ofori-Atta has not alerted their outfit of any medical report. He said they only got to know about his medical condition after the OSP initiated Interpol arrest and extradition to Ghana. According to him the office has received two letters from Ken Ofori-Atta’s legal team — one of the letters was to thank the OSP for indulging their client and a request for their client to undergo surgery.
