Crime & Punishment of Wednesday, 27 July 2005

Source: GNA

Court gives second adjournment in Judges and Registrar case

Accra, July 27, GNA - An Accra High Court on Wednesday fixed October 12 for the hearing of the case in which two Judges and a Court Registrar have been accused of conspiring to steal 115.18 million cedis. The money was part of interests accrued from money paid to the Denu High Court by the Great Lakes Company.

This was the second time that hearing had been adjourned, because the investigator in the case is indisposed. The accused persons are Justice Edward Mensah Boateng, a High Court Judge now on interdiction, Jacob Dickson Owusu, a Former Senior High Court Registrar in-charge of the Denu Court at the time of the incident and Justice Michael Kwasi Woanyah, a retired High Court Judge, whose last station was Denu.

When the case was called, the Prosecution told the Court presided over by Mrs Justice Avil Anin-Yeboah that the investigator in the case was ill and could not, therefore, send the accused persons from Denu to Court.

The facts of the case and charges preferred against the accused persons were not read. The Ghana News Agency investigations, however, revealed that two parties were litigating over a parcel of land being used as a quarry by the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company and Justice Boateng, who was the judge in that case, ordered the Company to pay an amount of 50,754.94 dollars to the Court to be held in trust for whoever would emerge as the owner of the land. The Company consequently made the payment to the then Senior Registrar of the Court. 27 July 05