Crime & Punishment of Monday, 8 June 2009

Source: GNA

Tenants petition Attorney General

Kumasi, June 8, GNA - Two tenants of the SAT building at Kejetia in Kumasi have petitioned the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to intervene and investigate the circumstances under which the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is withholding the docket of a case involving them and a businessman in Kumasi. The two, Mr Samuel Yeboah, Managing director of SAN Pharmacy and Opanin Kwame Afreh, former President of the National Drinking Bar Operators Association, said the petition had become necessary due to an attempt by the DPP to deny them justice. Addressing a press conference in Kumasi on Saturday, the petitioners said the continued withholding of the docket in the case in which they are claiming 700,000 Ghana cedis from Mr Osei Akwasi Boakye, Managing Director O.A Boakye Enterprise in Kumasi by the DPP was a deliberate attempt to deny them justice.

They said they reported a case of destruction and stealing of property against Mr Boakye to the police.

The police, after investigations, prepared the docket and sent it to the Attorney General's Office for advice after which a go ahead was given to the police to prosecute the case in court. According to the petitioners, just when the case was about to be sent to court, the DPP allegedly called the Attorney General's office in Kumasi and ordered that the docket be sent to her in Accra. They said for about four months that the docket had been with her in Accra, nothing had been heard about the case. The petitioners said the looting and destruction of their property in the SAT building by the defendant had caused severe financial loss to them and there was the need for them to seek redress and reclaim their properties.

They said the conduct of the DPP in the case was suspicious and there was the need for the Attorney General to intervene to ensure that the DPP was called to order and the docket brought for the case to be heard in court.