An Accra High Court has ordered the seizure of a building property of former Chief Executive of Kumasi Asante Kotoko, Herbert Mensah who owes a debt of ?356,000. About 30 armed policemen accompanied by auctioneers on Thursday morning stormed the premises of a building at Nyaniba Estates in Accra to enforce the court order.

According to a report by the Ghanaians Times newspaper,17 air conditioners were said to have been removed by the team from the multi purpose storey building known as Classic House. The court order which emanated from writ of FIFA, directed that both movable and immovable property belonging to Mr. Mensah be seized and auctioned to settle a debt of about 356,000 pounds sterling he owed Mary Macload in a business transaction.

Some associates and lawyers of Mr. Mensah prevented the team from towing away a customized cross-country Ford Navigator parked on the premises. This nearly generated into a brawl between them with the team insisting that they were acting on court orders while Mr. Mensah?s associates and lawyers argued that the property was not wholly owned by Mr. Mensah who was said to be out of town.

One of the auctioneers, D. O. Abbey said they were acting on a court order to seize both movable and immovable property that would cover the debt. The police, auctioneers and bailiff drove away after unsuccessful attempts to have the vehicle.

A source at the High Court Registry told the ?Times? that the writ of Fifa in which Macload sued Marketace Limited, owned by Mr. Mensah, over a business transactions, started in 1991. He said judgment was given in favour of the plaintiff in November 2002 but the case traveled this far because of appeals entered by the defendants.

The plaintiff, he said obtained the order for the seizure and auctioning of property in January this year. An earlier attempt in January to seize the defendant?s property was allegedly obstructed by the lawyer of Mr. Mensah?s wife which resulted in a contempt case against the lawyer. Marketace Limited is now defunct but Mr. Mensah is being liable because he owned the company and was jointly sued. Meanwhile counsel for Mr. Mensah, Larry Otoo, on Friday filed a writ for claims for the return of the air conditioners removed from the building. Among other things, the writ claims that the seized air conditioners are not part of Mr. Mensah?s property.