An Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Mr V. B. Garibah, on Thursday told a High Court in Accra that the suitcase in which Mallam Ali Yusuf Isa, the ex-Youth and Sports Minister claims contained the $46,000 belonging to the Ghana Football Association (GFA) was not tampered with. He said when the suitcase was examined during investigations into the loss of the money, it was detected that there was a dent on it with a small hole.
He explained that the hole was too small to enable anybody to gain access to the contents of the suitcase.
ASP Garibah made these revelations upon cross-examination by Mr Ambrose Dery, counsel for Mallam Isa.
Mallam Isa has pleaded not guilty to two counts of stealing and fraudulently causing financial loss to the state and has been granted bail in the sum of 500 million cedis with a surety to be justified. ASP Garibah, who was part of the investigating team, told the court that suitcases such as the one Mallam Isa was using have security code which make it difficult for anybody to gain access to the contents except the owners.
He said it will take between eight and 24 hours for even experts to go through all the processes to open suitcase.
The witness said if even the security code are used to open the suitcase, it would be difficult for any one to gain access into it, since it is also locked with keys.
He said access could only be gained into the suitcase when the owner does not use the keys to lock it and the security code is applied.
When asked by counsel for Mallam Isa whether any other mechanism, like a master key, apart from the original key could be used to open the suitcase, ASP Garibah said he has no idea.