General News of Friday, 13 March 2015
Source: adomonline.com
Counsel for businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome has asked former President Jerry John Rawlings to prove that his client is a “thief”.
Mr. Woyome, who was acquitted and discharged by an Accra High Court on Thursday March 12, 2015 on two counts of wilfully causing financial loss and defrauding the state by false pretences in the Ghc51 million judgment debt saga, has been described by the former President as a thief, who has been helped by the state to get away with his misdeeds.
“Woyome the thief is now a free man because some of our people who were involved in the thievery like Betty Mould and one other person were not produced in court for interrogation to provide vital information to jail him,” he fumed.
The former President, addressing the family of WOI Isaac Tetteh, (one of his former bodyguards) in his house, vented his anger over the ruling; questioning the ability of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to fight corruption.
Reacting to President Rawlings’ comments, lawyer Ahmed Musah on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem on Friday insisted it is in the remit of the court to pronounce a person guilty or not.
He wondered why a ‘respectable’ man like the former President will call his client a thief when he has no evidence and when the court has even discharged him of all the charges leveled against him by the state.
“If you have evidence that my client is indeed a thief then report him to the police or take him to court. If a whole court has discharged and acquitted him, why then do you have to call him a thief. I don’t agree with him at all.
“Once we have the time we will respond at the appropriate time” he stressed.