The Tamale High Court has rescinded its decision to issue a bench warrant for the Savelugu MP, Jacob Abdulai Iddrisu.
The Court presided over by Justice Richard Kogyapwah had earlier issued a bench warrant for the arrest of the MP on March 31, 2023, after he failed to appear in court.
But in court on Monday, April 3, the counsel for the MP, Charles Lwanga Puozuing, appealed to the court to rescind its decision. The court subsequently granted the plea of the lawyers of the MP.
Mr Iddrisu is being prosecuted on two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.
On December 9, 2020, state prosecutors said they found an AK-47 rifle and 60 rounds of ammunition in an office they alleged to be owned by the Savelugu MP.
In court on Monday, the state prosecutors presented their last witness, the Northern Regional Crime Officer Superintendent Bernard Baba Ananga.
During cross-examination, the lawyer for the accused, Charles Lwanga Puozuing, stated that even though the police had indicated there were many other witnesses, only the four who moved from the regional headquarters to Savelugu were the people who had written their statement.
Speaking to the media after the court proceedings, Mr Puozuing said his camp believes it was a calculated attempt by the four to incriminate their client.
In their statement, they said other persons were present when the incident happened but they haven’t been able to file any such testimony independent of the police.
“So, our mind is that it was an orchestrated matter the police set out from Tamale purposely to create a scenario at Savelugu and put it on the MP,” he said.
Mr Puazuing quizzed, ”If there were other witnesses, why did they not write the statement and testify in court? If there were pressmen, military men, and other police officers from Savelugu, why didn’t they write their statement?”
Mr Puazuing said the witnesses of the prosecution were not credible and that it was a planned act calculated and executed.
He stated that three officers have been crossed examined already with the final person being the Northern Regional Crime Officer, the officer in charge of all crime prosecutions in the Northern region.