Attorney- General not ready for Soussoudis

Eight clear months after the arrest of Michael Soussoudis, cousin of former President Rawlings for illegal possession of arms, the Attorney-General's Department (AGD) is yet to advice the prosecution on how the case should proceed.

The Evening News says this came to light on Tuesday 30 October 2001 when Soussoudis appeared before a Circuit Tribunal in Accra to answer charges relating to the illegal possession of weapons.

When the case was called, the prosecutor announced that they are still waiting for advice from the Attorney -General's office since they had not heard anything from them for quite a long time and therefore was not sure of what was going on.

The announcement prompted Mr. K. Amponsah-Dadzie, counsel for the accused to request for a long adjournment in order to carry on with their lives as the frequent visits to the courts was disrupting their business schedules.

He maintained that if the adjournment is granted, the AG's office would be free to serve notice on them anytime they were ready to continue with the case.

Mr Amponsah-Dadzie served notice of their intention to file a motion to compel the police to return all or some of the licensed and seized weapons to his client to help him defend himself due to the increasing crime wave it the country.

In the same breath, he indicated that the passport of his client was with the police and added that he also intends to file a motion for its return since it served no purpose for the police still keeping it.

The case was therefore adjourned to 27 November 2001 to enable the AG's office to come up with the advice, failure of which would lead to another possible lengthy adjournment by the court in favour of the defence.

It is recalled that on February 25, 2001, a significant number of arms and ammunition were found at the Labone residence of Soussoudis during a police swoop. This was after a two-week ultimatum given by the government on 6 February 2001 requesting all those in possession of unlicensed arms to hand them over to the security agencies had elapsed.