Gina Blay testifies at Cocaine Committee

Accra, Aug 1, GNA - Mrs Georgina Ama Blay, Managing Editor of 'Daily Guide' an Accra newspaper, on Tuesday told the Georgina Woode Committee investigating allegation into the bribery of Police officers by Ms Grace Asibi, after the cocaine raid at East Legon that her personal investigations revealed that Gerardo Varquez, Ms Asibi's boyfriend, left Ghana before the raid.

Appearing at a public hearing to testify in the case, Mrs Blay said her investigations at the Ghana Immigration Services during her association with Ms Asibi revealed that Mr Varquez left the country on November 10, 2005 while the raid took place on November 25. Mrs Blay said due to this revelation she had never published anything told to her by Ms Asibi in relation to her bribing of the Police.

Mrs Blay said due to this revelation she confronted Ms Asibi about why she had lied about the presence of Mr Varquez in the country during the raid, to which she (Asibi) had apologized and confirmed that she (Asibi) had personally dropped Mr Varquez at the airport on November 10 and that he had travelled on a KLM flight.

Mrs Blay said Ms Asibi had called her several times hysterically urging her to publish the stories she (Asibi) had told her because her life was in danger and that the first story that 93Daily Guide=94 published had put her in a bad light.

Mrs Blay said based on the numerous court actions against her paper in recent times she decided to be very professional in dealing with people, who brought such information to her doorsteps. "I had to do a through investigation about the issue at stake before going public," Mrs Blay said.

Narrating how she came to know Ms Asibi, Mrs Blay said Ms Asibi personally called her office to debunk a story that the paper had published about her involvement in 125,000 dollars case in an issue relating to cocaine raid on March 16 2006 and a follow up one on March 18, 2006.

Mrs Blay said Ms Asibi invited her to her shop at Osu, near the Penta Hotel, to give her (Mrs Blay) a better insight into the story. Mrs Blay, who said she spent more than four hours with Ms Asibi on the said date, said she went to the place with Baby Ansaba; then regarded as the Deputy Editor of the paper, where Ms Asibi's story was taped with her permission.

According to Mrs Blay, Ms Asibi told her that she knew those, who were arrested in relation to the cocaine raid at East Legon and that the Police had taken a bribe of 200,000 dollars from her.

Mrs Blay said Ms Asibi told her that on the day of the raid, her boyfriend Varquez gave her the money in four bundles to be given to Superintendent Edward Tabiri at the East Legon house.

Mrs Baly said according to the narration, Ms Asibi said Mr Tabiri directed her to go and wait for him at Tetteh Quashie Interchange where he picked her up at around 1800 hours.

She said Ms Asibi said they then proceeded to the Police Headquarters where she handed over 170,000 dollars to Mr Tabiri.

According to Mrs Blay, Ms Asibi said she was later arrested and detained overnight and that her life was being jeopardised by the story that had been published by the 'Daily Guide'.

Mrs Blay said in their presence she called someone, whom she alleged was Mr Tabiri and tried pushing the person into accepting the fact that he had taken money from her but the person also kept his guard and kept denying.

She then urged her to come to the office if she had any problem. According to Mrs Blay when she inquired from Ms Asibi how she was able to record Mr Tabiri over a money issues since she had alleged that he always searched her bag before any meeting, Ms Asibi said she had hidden the tape in her pants and that was how she was able to record. According to Mrs Blay the tape in question had never been audible and it was Ms Asibi, who always repeated the recorded voice of the person on tape, and that when the tape was sent to the BNI, they were also not able to detect the person with whom she had had the conversation.

Mrs Blay said Ms Asibi told her that her life was under threat, so she reported her interaction with Ms Asibi to the Head of BNI in addition to a National Security Officer.

An arrangement was made by the BNI Director to pick her up one weekend and she gave him the tape recording of the conversation she had had with Ms Asibi, Mrs Blay said.

Mrs Blay said on another Saturday, Ms Asibi called her late in the night to say some people were after her and were threatening her adding: "Why are you refusing to publish the story that my life is in danger?" Mrs Blay said she immediately called the Head of BNI, but he did not pick the call so she sent him text message to go to the assistance of Ms Asibi, whose life appeared to be in danger.

According to Mrs Blay, Ms Asibi never mentioned the name of the person, who was after her life.

Mrs Blay tendered in the tape recording of her conversation with Ms Asibi to the Committee.