Court awards GH¢500 against EOCO in Woyome trial

The Court of Appeal in Accra has ordered the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) to pay a sum of Gh¢500 as cost to Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome over their failure to enter into a defense in a case over the freezing of his assets.

Mr. Biadella Mortey Akpadzi, Executive Director of EOCO and his lawyers received the order on Tuesday over their inability to open up their defense in court after they deliberately allowed time to elapse, making the work of the Appeals Court more cumbersome.

Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, former Vice Consul for Austria and a businessman had been in court since February this year, seeking EOCO to defreeze all the bank accounts and financial assets which his lawyers say was illegally confiscated on the back of an exparte ruling by a judge of the financial court, over the payment of GH¢51,283,480 million, as judgment debt to him by the state.

The judges of the Appeals Court argued and awarded the cost on behalf of Mr. Woyome due to EOCO’s inability to present their case in defense of the submission brought against them by Mr. Woyome.

The judges could not fathom why Mr. Akpadzi and the EOCO could document and wrongfully refer to Alfred Agbesi Woyome as ALBERT Woyome. It took the orders from the judges to get EOCO to effect the change of name on the docket and sign by it before it was considered.

Mr. Justice Bright Mensah, the presiding judge of the financial court had earlier in January this year, granted an order to EOCO to freeze Woyome’s accounts at the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), and freeze all his financial assets and other bank accounts.

Mr. Woyome is currently facing trial for misrepresenting documentations to get the government to pay him GH¢51, 283,480.59, thereby willfully and fraudulently causing financial loss to the state.