A Deputy Attorney General, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, has disclosed that the sentencing given to ‘galamsey queen’ Aisha Huang was for crimes she committed between 2015 and 2017.

Illegal miner, Aisha Huang, has been jailed for four and a half years after she was found guilty of mining without a license.

The court has also fined her GH¢48,000.

She was found guilty of the crime and was handed the sentence.

The court relied on the old regime of the law which had five years as the minimum sentence for the offence she was charged with.

After hearing both the prosecution and defence cases, the Judge ruled the accused guilty.

Aisha Huang was charged with unlawful mining activities in the Ashanti region.

Some have described the 4 and a half years plus the Ghc48,000 fine as lenient.

But the Deputy Minister says the Chinese national was prosecuted for her involvement in illegal mining operations between 2015 and 2017, by which time the amended law had not been passed.

“When we arrested her last year [2022], there was no evidence that when she came back to Ghana, she committed illegal mining offences. We probed into it and we didn’t find any evidence. If there had been, it would have been another matter,” he told Joy News on Monday.

He further explained that the case relied heavily on evidence collected between 2015 and 2017.

“The law is about evidence and not speculation. Aisha Huang’s case was prosecuted based on the evidence that we had between 2015 and 2017. Nothing more, nothing less,” Tuah-Yeboah said.