The controversial legal practitioner, Dr. Maurice Ampaw has described the Ghana Police as ‘irresponsible’ for failing to provide evidence for the Attorney-General’s Department leading to the quashing of a case in which 8-members of the pro-ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) vigilante group, Delta Force, were standing trial for freeing their 13 colleagues from lawful custody.
According to him, the government has allowed pressure from party loyalists as well as NPP lawyers to push it to take wrong decisions which are not in the best interest of the state. “Why should the court free these men who defied everything and went straight to the courts to manhandle a whole judge?
The police acted irresponsibly because they know and have evidence to prove that those people are indeed guilty but chose to act unprofessionally and allowed the A-G to discharge the case. I think some NPP lawyers are just hypocrites for behaving as though they know nothing about law” he said on Accra based Okay fm.
Eight members of Delta Force were freed by Kumasi Circuit Court 2 on May 17, 2017 over lack of evidence to prosecute them.
Abass Caesar, Ebenezer Opoku, Samuel Yeboah, Kofi Fosu, Christian Anokye, Kwame Frempong, Eric Kusi and Abdul Suleman Odudu were released because the prosecution did not have evidence to prove its case of assault on a public officer and three other charges leveled against them.
They attacked the court, intimidated the judge and freed 13 suspects who were at the time standing trial for attacking the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator.
However, the outcome of the case has generated huge public uproar with the Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) condemning the decision and demanding the re-arrest and prosecution of the suspects.
The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Gloria Akuffo has ordered investigations into the circumstances under which the Principal State Attorney in Kumasi entered a nolle prosequi and got eight of the suspects discharged for lack of evidence.
But speaking on the issue, Lawyer Ampaw maintained that though the Akufo-Addo administration has shot itself in the foot, it can still make amends by putting things right through the probe ordered by the A-G, Gloria Akufo, to look in the circumstances leading to the release of the suspects.
He is of the firm conviction that justice will not be served if the discharge of the accused persons ends the matter.
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