Private legal practitioner, Kweku Paintsil does not think the outburst of the third accused in the controversial ambulance trial has any bearing on the substantive matter.
According to the lawyer, the mere fact that the witness, Richard Jakpa, introduced the purported issue of a prior conversation with the Attorney General, Godfred Dame, cannot change the course of the trial.
On the back of that, he insists that Mr. Dame did nothing wrong in deciding not to respond to Mr. Jakpa during the hearing where he was physically present.
He said this on Newsfile on Saturday, June 1, 2024.
“The mere introduction of that evidence at the stage that he claimed the Attorney General was annoying him or whatever, I personally would not see how at the end of it, if we are summing up the case you can introduce that to sway or to persuade the judge or to make the judge believe that something that transpired out of the court has every influence on the outcome of the case,” he told Samson Lardy Anyenini.
Richard Jakpa has already filed a court application seeking to have the charges against him dismissed or, alternatively, have the proceedings against him stayed.
The application was submitted on Thursday, May 30, 2024, by his lawyers.
In the application, Mr Jakpa argues that the charges and proceedings initiated by Attorney-General Godfred Yeboah Dame constitute an abuse of court processes and violate the obligations set in the 1992 Constitution.
He contends that the Attorney-General is misusing his constitutional powers by prosecuting him without justification.
Mr Jakpa also claims that in private conversations, the Attorney-General admitted that there is no case against him.
This assertion further supports Mr Jakpa’s argument that the prosecution is unwarranted and constitutes an abuse of power.
“The Attorney-General at whose instance the Third Accused/ Applicant is being prosecuted in the instant suit has brought the charges and instituted the proceedings in abuse of the process of the court and contrary to his constitutional obligations under articles 23 and 296 of the 1992 Constitution.”
Last week, Richard Jakpa, the third accused in the case, claimed that the Attorney-General had encouraged him to provide false testimony against Dr. Ato Forson during the trial.
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