General News of Tuesday, 11 July 2006

Source: NANA SIFA TWUM, LONDON

Daasebre appears in court via videolink

The Ghanaian High Life Musician, in the centre of drug smuggling case in London, Daasebre Dwamena today appeared in court for the third time but again his plea was not taken.

A three-member judicial team sitting on the case at the Uxbridge magistrate court in London, once again, remanded the Ghanaian music star, in prison custody to reappear on the 8th of August this year.

The magistrate court has been denied jurisdictions over the case and therefore will on the 8th of August refer the case to the Isleworth Crown Court for the continuation of the trial of the music star.

Daasebre Dwamena was arrested in the early hours of Thursday the 29th of June this year when he disembarked from a British Airways flight from Accra to London by security and customs officials for possessing substances suspected to be cocaine.

Appearing in a red ‘T-Shirt’ via a HMP Wormwood Scrubs video link system at court room 3 the Ghanaian highlife star appeared very confident but not cheerful. Assertively he mentioned his name ‘Gyamenah Daasebre’ (as spelt in court records), when he was asked of his name and date of birth. He gave his date of birth as 25th December 1972.

Seated calmly in the prisons, he was told by the court clerk, “I believe you have been told but I need to repeat it to you that you have to consider the room where you are as a court room and that you have to behave well as such” “Okay, thank you” Dwamena responded via the link.

Within six minutes all was over and he was told to reappear on the 8th of August again via a video link. Daasebre’s case was the second of four other video linked trials involving drugs smuggling into the UK at that particular court room three.

No family member or a close friend was spotted either outside or inside the court room. This may be as a result of the fact that the suspect was not appearing in person at the court but his lawyer, Mr. Mohamed Reza Ally, told me later in an interview that Daasebre does not want people to visit him “because he is scared. He has not gone through this kind of situation before and he does not exactly know what is happening.”

In all there were six Ghanaians at the court, three journalists, a lawyer and two other interested persons.