General News of Friday, 11 March 2011

Source: Daily Guide

CID Chase Amina Tape

The Michael Ofosu Frimpong version of the Amina Yutong sex story has moved into higher gear, as the Police and their Criminal Investigations Department (CID) counterparts launch a serious hunt for a transcript of the suspect’s shocking disclosures from custody.

In the disclosures made last week, the incarcerated Frimpong alleged that the Attorney General coached him to mention names of some top New Patriotic Party (NPP) politicians as those who enticed him with money to corroborate the Amina story. He claimed that the NPP gurus offered him GH¢99,000 (¢900million) to play ball with them.

Just as the heat generated by his earlier naming of the Attorney General as being behind his framing up of the NPP stalwarts was dying out, he fired another one on Wednesday in which he said he had been transferred to the Nsawam Medium Security Prison and denied food.

While the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service headed for Oman FM, where he collected a copy of the recording of the first transcript, his CID counterpart, Chief Inspector Darkwah, was unlucky because he could not locate the recording when he visited DAILY GUIDE on Wednesday, the day on which the second bombshell was dropped.

With the CID Director insisting on having the recording, Chief Inspector Darkwah returned yesterday to DAILY GUIDE in the company of a Chief Superintendent of Police, Dennis Abade, Director of Vetting and Crime Analysis (VCA) Unit.

The mission, the Superior Officer stated, was to obtain the recording for the purpose of investigating the allegation that the Attorney General coached the young man.

Although the senior officer did not get the recording, he returned to his superior officers with the disturbing information that Michael Frimpong spoke again on Wednesday, stating that he had been moved from the CID headquarters custody to Nsawam Medium Security Prison because of his ‘confession’ that he was coached.

The movement was a punitive action for, as he put it, spilling the contents of his interaction with the authorities, as they strove for a deal.

Frimpong stated from his new abode, the Nsawam Prisons, that the investigator in the case, Issa Mohammed, accosted him for disclosing the interaction he had with the authorities to the media.

“Isa Mohammed said as a result of what I have done, they are going to deal with me. I was moved in a Ghana Prison Service vehicle from the CID headquarters to Nsawam and denied food. I have had to depend on small raw gari,” he lamented.

He said he put up a challenge when they tried to take him away to Nsawam because, according to him, “I do not know what I have done wrong to warrant this treatment,” warning that he would go all out.

Issa Mohammed, he said, threatened him with skipping his next court date - 16th March 2011 - as part of punitive measures against him for not keeping their interactions secret.

Michael Frimpong mentioned that he was ready to offer proof about what transpired between him and the Attorney General, adding that he was taken to a certain Room 48 where the authorities told him to rope in the NPP persons as part of the deal, after giving him written notes to rehearse.

“They said they would deal with me because I disclosed the contents of their interactions with me, details of which were carried by the Daily Guide newspaper,” he said in a voice.

Given the hostile treatment he is now receiving from his hosts, it is amazing that he would still risk speaking to the outside world.

Michael Ofosu Frimpong popped up when the Amina mass sex story reached a crescendo, claiming that he witnessed the action, a story which has since then assumed various versions, the latest being claims that the Attorney General coached him on what to state in court.

He was arrested when he corroborated the Amina story on an Accra radio station after the proprietor of the station alerted the police.

His long stay as a guest of the police at Teshie attracted media attention, whereupon he was moved to other police stations including Cantonments, CID headquarters and transferred to Nsawam prisons where he fell sick and was chained to a hospital bed.

He shook the media and political landscape when he recently told the court, as a prosecution witness, that he was asked by top NPP persons like Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, National Chairman; Kennedy Agyapong, MP for Assin North; Yaw Osafo Maafo, former Minister of Finance; and counsel for Amina, Prof Ken Attafuah; to corroborate the sex story so they would give him money.