A legal practitioner has debunked assertion that lead counsel for President John Mahama was playing delay tactic in his cross examination of the witness in chief for the petitioners seeking to overturn the results of the 2012 general elections.
Samson Lardy Ayenini said Tony Lithur, like his counterpart on the other side, Philip Addison, is skilful at what he does and both are setting themselves up for a big showdown.
Lithur for several hours took the petitioner’s key witness, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia through what some critics describe as a boring repertoire of affirming duplicated pink sheet exhibits for the same polling station.
The president’s lawyer after taking the witness through 38 of those duplicated pinks sheet exhibits, suggested strongly to him that he deliberately duplicated the exhibits of the same polling stations in order to increase the figures and deceitfully make a case for the petitioners’ alleged fraud claims in the December elections.
Bawumia was insistent and repetitive in his answer. He admitted the pink sheets were duplicated for the same polling station because one of the exhibits was manually generated and the other was electronically generated, but he was quick to add that the figures on both exhibits were entered just once in his analysis.
Some supporters of the NDC are already basking in glory but the supporters of the NPP say Tony Lithur was only engaging in empty delay tactics.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, lawyer Samson Lardy Ayenini said the two lawyers have their own strategies to execute their cases.
He dismissed assertions that Tony Lithur was playing a delay tactic and should have lumped together all the 38 cases of duplications and make his case, instead of going through them one after the other.
“In cross examination your job is to try to discredit the witness and his testimony and to try and elicit some inconsistencies and get the witness to make some admissions in support of your case.
“…Each individual exhibit stands on its own and serves a different purpose. So it is his (Tony Lithur) job to ensure that he goes though each one of them one by one. You never know he may get one answer for one and a different answer for another,” he explained.
Lardy said the petitioners’ lawyers had skilfully put their case across and it is the duty now for the respondents lawyers to punch holes and make their case.
He said on the next adjourned date which is Monday, Lithur as well as Quarshie Idun, lawyer for the EC, as well as Tsatsu Tsikata, lawyer for the NDC will have their turn to cross cross examine the witness.
He said there is still a long way to go adding, the petitioners’ lawyers for would have the opportunity to take Dr Bawumia, through a re-examination of the issues he was cross-examined on in order to clear the air.