General News of Monday, 5 December 2005

Source: Stateman

Amoateng ?lawyer? a hoax

Statesman -- NANA Kwadwo Darko Busia, the man who threw the whole nation into dangerous panic by alleging that his ?client?, the arrested MP Eric Amoateng (pictured right), has mentioned top government officials as accomplices in drug trafficking, has turned out to be a dangerous liar.

Worse still, our inquiries in Europe point towards a probable and overly elaborate conspiracy to bring down the Kufuor administration by brandishing it as a ring of international drug barons.

On Thursday, our Editor-in-Chief, Asare Otchere-Darko, who travelled to the United Kingdom this week to get to the bottom of the apparent conspiracy, spoke to the man who claimed until yesterday that he was the attorney representing the MP for Nkoranza North. Eric Amoateng is on remand in New York, USA, on charges of trafficking 62kilos of heroin with a street value of $6 million. For sixteen minutes, Nana Busia, who introduced himself as a grandson of the late K A Busia, Prime Minister of the Second Republic, freely gave ?information? about himself.

He described himself as a barrister, licensed to practise in both the US and UK.

However, checks made by The Statesman have shown beyond doubt that Nana Kwadwo Busia is not, and never has been, called to the English Bar. The address to his law firm does not even exist. The name of his chambers does not exist. His name and that of the other lawyers he mentioned as members of his chambers cannot be found on the list of lawyers at the General Bar Council for England and Wales. Neither can they be found on the roll call of solicitors mandatorily registered with the Law Society.

It gets worse. He had earlier disclosed news to the Ghanaian media that three Ghanaians had been arrested in the UK in connection with the Amoateng and Nii Okai Adjei case in the US. Yesterday he gave their names and the prisons they could be located to The Statesman.

The results of our findings are most shocking. Read this and more, including how he could have been easily conspired by others to design this unpatriotic and dangerous web of fabrication against the integrity of Ghana, in Monday?s edition.