A high powered delegation from Ghana led by the Foreign, National Security, and Justice Ministers are expected to leave Ghana Tuesday morning to the United Arab Emirates, with the sole aim of getting them to release the chief executive officer of gold dealership firm, Menzgold, Nana Appiah Mensah to face justice in Ghana.
In the absence of an extradition treaty between the country, Ghana is relying on a 2010 mutual legal assistance ACT passed by parliament to negotiate with Dubai.
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Nana Appiah also known as NAM1 is been sought across the world to face charges of fraud following his company’s inability to pay its customers their locked up investment.
A police statement released Monday said NAM1 was arrested December last year over suspicion he was involved in a gold deal gone bad in Dubai.
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Deputy Attorney General, Joseph Kpemka said the team is hopeful of an acceptable outcome that will benefit the country.
Extradition in UAE
The UAE has deployed since 2006 a specific Federal Law known as Federal Law no. 39 of 2006 on Mutual Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters.
This law permits the UAE authorities only to hear the formal procedures and conditions of the extradition request regardless of the nature of the crime.
The UAE is a signatory party to the Riyadh Arab Convention on Judicial Co-operation in 1983, which was signed by most other Arab countries including Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.
The UAE is also a signatory party to many bilateral treaties signed and ratified for judicial co-operation such as agreements with Australia, China, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Pakistan, Spain, the United Kingdom and Republic of Kazakhstan.
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The UAE has set up a judicial mechanism made up of five stages enabling the person requested for extradition to challenge the extradition process as follows:
The Local Interpol Authorities in the UAE
The Public Prosecution heading the International Judicial Matters
The Court of Appeal
The Cassation Court
The Ministry of Justice & The Ministry of Interior
Article 7 of the Federal Law no. 39 of 2006 on Mutual Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters states the conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to qualify for accepting extradition.
Article 9 of the same law states the legal obstacles that will lead to non-extradition.
Ghanaian officials may however rely on the Mutual Legal Assistance Act, 2010, to negotiate their way through.
Under the Act, a request for mutual legal assistance in a criminal matter includes a request for assistance
(a) to identify and locate persons;
(b) to examine witnesses;
(c) to serve judicial documents;
(d) to execute searches, arrests and seizures;
(e) to examine documents, objects and sites;
(f) for the transfer of proceedings for the prosecution of a serious offence.
Listen to Joseph Kpemka in the audio above: