A Circuit Tribunal at Tema on Thursday remanded a clergyman and a former officer of the Ghana Armed Forces for issuing two dishonoured cheques for 116 million cedis. The Reverend Captain John Bunyan Abeiku Sam (rtd) pleaded not guilty to two counts of issuing dud cheques and would re-appear on 11 July.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Robert Aganiba, prosecuting told the tribunal chaired by Mr Ringo Cass Azumah that sometime in August 2000, Sam approached Mr Bright Amlalo, a car dealer and bought five cars including Mitsubishi L 300, two Toyota Corolla, Opel Kadett and Sport Wagon, all valued at 200 million cedis.

He said the two agreed that the money should be paid by instalments, and Sam issued various post-dated cheques to cover the amount. ASP Aganiba said on October 25, 2000, Mr Amlalo presented the first cheque with a face value of 60 million cedis to be drawn at the Metropolitan and Allied Bank, Castle Road, Accra, but it bounced.

Efforts made to get Sam to pay the amount proved futile. On 8 March 2001, Amlalo presented another cheque of 56 million cedis to the same bank, and it was also dishonoured and when he traced Sam to his residence in Accra, he realised that he had vacated there and had gone into hiding.

ASP Aganiba said on 2 July 2002 acting upon a tip off, Sam was arrested at Nungua and was handed over to the Police at Tema. Sam admitted the offence in his cautioned statement to the police and pleaded with the police to allow him time to pay the amount in instalments.