Almost three(3) months since the interdicted Deputy Superintendent of the Police (DSP) service, Gifty Mawuenyega-Tehoda, petitioned the presidency, in which she accused the Deputy Director General of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), ACP Vincent Dedzo, as being the man who allegedly swapped the cocaine for baking Soda, in the famous cocaine-turn-baking- Soda puzzle, the security service have remained silent on arresting and prosecuting the security capo.

In the petition dated, September 25, 2012, which was intercepted by this paper at the presidency, the woman who has been bandied about by the security agencies as the brain behind the swapping of the cocaine revealed how the exhibit was stolen from police custody and sold in the open market.

At the time (2008), the petition disclosed, ACP Vincent Dedzo was the Head of the Narcotics Unit of the CID and “After stealing the cocaine from a safe, whose key was in his exclusive possession, he handed it over to a junior officer by name Mensah Cudjoe, who handed it over to a dealer by name Cantonna. It ended up in the market for the value of Nineteen Thousand Dollars (US$19,000.00).”

The detective inspector further disclosed in the petition that, “When I was eventually released from the cells of the BNI, the Director of Operations, Pious Awolenga had a chat with me and told me that because of the hype of the case in the media, it was possible that people may come to whisper into my ears about how the cocaine got swapped. He asked that in case I chanced on any information, I should co-operate with them and make it available. Indeed, not quite long after my bail, some young men approached my pastor and indicated that they knew people in the cocaine underworld who had credible information on the missing cocaine.

She continued, in the petition which this paper is reliably informed is on the desk of the National Security Adviser, Brg. General Joseph Nunoo Mensah that, “I did not hesitate to line them up to the BNI operatives. In the course of time, they became informants. Through their assistance, they were able to bring the operatives into contact with sources in the cocaine underworld who volunteered startling and damning revelations”. 

Armed with the foregoing intelligence, the operatives of the BNI, according to the petitioner, mounted surveillance on Mensah Cudjoe and, “One fine evening he was arrested in possession of 2 kilograms of cocaine. During interrogations, he traded information on past activities with ACP Vincent Dedzo”.

“He confessed to carrying cocaine for ACP Vincent Dedzo on 3 occasions, including the missing one. He confirmed that he indeed gave it to Cantonna. In respect of the two other occasions, he mentioned one Kwame Atta and one Adjei as recipients. It is pertinent to note that the four names which were floated by the informants as people who usually dealt with ACP Vincent Dedzo, in the cocaine business were all confirmed during the interrogation of ACP Vincent Dedzo’s courier, Mensah Cudjoe. These confession statements were made in the presence of two friends of Mensah Cudjoe”, DSP Tehoda disclosed in the petition.

When this paper later contacted DSP Tehoda, who seem shocked as to how the paper got a copy of the petition, to find out why she was now making the revelation in the petition public, she said she was quiet at the time because the BNI was still investigating and therefore, it would have been unprofessional on her part to have petitioned anybody.

 Meanwhile, all attempts to reach ACP Vincent Dedzoe, to react to the allegation in the petition hit on a snag as his 0244… mobile phone was either switched off or out of coverage area. 

Please see below to read the unedited petition by DSP Tehoda and stay tuned as this paper digs for more information on this story.

25th September, 2012

To His Excellency
President John Dramini Mahama
Office of the President of Ghana
The Castle  - Osu

Through
The National Security Advisor
Brg. General Joseph Nunoo Mensah
The Castle – Osu

Your Excellency,

PETITION AGAINST WRONGFUL DISMISSAL FROM THE POLICE SERVICE

Background

I am a Ghanaian citizen by birth and nationality and a mother of two young children. I enlisted into the Ghana Police Service in the year 2000 and rose to the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in the year 2007.

Recently, I was served with a letter from a Central Disciplinary Board of the Police Service purporting to dismiss me from the Service pursuant to a purported review of a service enquiry. I find the circumstances leading to my dismissal and the procedures thereto adopted to be very unlawful, capricious and biased. Until the purported dismissal, I was the Deputy Commander of the Commercial Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). I will endeavour to give a full account of events in this Petition.

On the 29th of December, 2011 I was invited to the offices of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to assist in the investigation of a missing cocaine exhibit in a criminal trial involving one Nana Ama Martins.

Sir, you had at the time instructed that the BNI should conduct investigations into the matter to unearth what really happened.

Among all the officers and junior ranks investigated in connection with the missing cocaine, I was the only person detained in the cells of the BNI for a total of 45 days under very traumatizing conditions.

However, my only involvement with the case under reference, was the fact that, on a few occasions when Nana Ama Martins’ (the suspect in custody’s) families visited her from Kumasi, I used to ask my junior officers to bring her from the cells to the long room in the presence of the junior officers so that the family members could see her due to congestion in the cells. I must add that this is a practice all senior officers engage in without any ill motive.

Even though this was my only involved in the case, I was pushed in and out of Court and into the cells of the BNI. In fact I was portrayed to the whole world as the one responsible for the swapping of the cocaine exhibit with the connivance of some faceless people.

The Orchestration By The Criminals Investigation Department (CID) Of The Police Service
In the course of my prosecution for no offence committed the grand scheme by the CID to use me as a pawn to cover up obvious wrong doings within the set up dawned on me.

In the first place ACP Vincent Dedzo, who is the Deputy Director General of CID and for that matter my boss went and lied to the investigation panel that I approached him during a Peace Keeping Mission in Sudan that he should do something about Nana Ama Martins’ case.

This is a total falsehood but it helped to fortify the suspicion that I knew something about how the cocaine exhibit got swapped.

Again, when I was granted bail the second time by the High Court; I was rearrested the same hour. The rearrest was covertly executed and the operation was led by no other person than my own unit commander Superintendent Felix Mawusi. After my release on bail, that same hour, Supt. Mawusi who was waiting on the Court premises approached me with a request that the Inspector General of Police instructed that I should come back to the Headquarters to brief my superiors. This was after spending 17 traumatizing days in the BNI cells. I obliged, but to my amazement, when I got to the CID headquarters I was rather given a form to write  what I knew about the missing cocaine exhibit; I wrote my statement. Thereafter I was whisked away to the BNI office and there I was told that I was being rearrested.

I had to spend the next 5 hours in the BNI reception before a preparation was made to receive me back into their cells. This I later learnt was because the BNI did not know that my own department would re-arrest me since they were not in charge of investigations. This orchestration by the CID made me spend additional 18 days in the cells of the BNI.

When my lawyers succeeded in obtaining bail for me for the 3rd time, the following day, I was informed of my interdiction by a handwritten note from my unit commander, the same Supt. Felix Mawusi and a request to hand over to a new deputy.

At the office to hand over, another aspect of the conspiracy was revealed to me. One Chief Inspector Anim brought a signal generated from the Director General, CID to my unit with the instruction to sign. That was the signal that contained the order of interdiction.

It stated clearly as follows: “with strong evidence from the BNI that you were actively involved in the swapping of the cocaine exhibit, you are hereby interdicted”.

When I wanted to make a photocopy of it, I was informed by the bearer that he was under a strict instruction not to allow me make a copy of it. Upon instruction from my lawyer I marked it “seen” and signed.

So, I was interdicted based on the interim report of the BNI which was quickly rejected by the same Director General of CID at a press conference as baseless and inconclusive.

It was based on the same views expressed by the Director General, CID (I believed) that is why ASP Adjei Tuadzra, who was also indicted jointly to be held responsible for the missing cocaine has been allowed to remain at post till today. The big question is why the Director-General (CID) did choose to base my interdiction on the so called baseless and inconclusive interim report of the BNI?

Surprisingly, after more than six months of proceeding to the trial Court, the BNI failed to produce the so called strong evidence to prove my involvement in the swapping of the cocaine exhibit.

Further Investigations and Damning Revelations

When I was eventually released from the cells of the BNI, the Director of Operations, Pious Awolenga had a chat with me and told me that because of the hype of the case in the media, it was possible that people may come to whisper into my ears about how the cocaine got swapped. He asked that in case I chanced on any information, I should co-operate with them and make it available. Indeed, not quite long after my bail, some young men approached my pastor and indicated that they knew people in the cocaine underworld who had credible information on the missing cocaine.

I did not hesitate to line them up to the BNI operatives. In the course of time, they became informants. Through their assistance, they were able to bring the operatives into contact with sources in the cocaine underworld who volunteered startling and damning revelations. According to the sources, it was Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Vincent Dedzo, the current Deputy Director-General of the CID, who stole the missing cocaine. At the time, that was the latter part of 2008, he was the Head of the Narcotics Unit of the CID.

After stealing the cocaine from a safe, whose key was in his exclusive possession, he handed it over to a junior officer by name Mensah Cudjoe, who handed it over to a dealer by name Cantonna. It ended up in the market for the value of Nineteen Thousand Dollars (US$19,000.00). These were the startling revelations from the informants, one of who claimed he had dealt in cocaine with ACP Vincent Dedzo since 2006.

Arrest of Mensah Cudjoe

Armed with the foregoing intelligence, the operatives of the BNI mounted surveillance on Mensah Cudjoe. One fine evening he was arrested in possession of 2 kilograms of cocaine. During interrogations, he traded information on past activities with ACP Vincent Dedzo. He confessed to carrying cocaine for ACP Vincent Dedzo on 3 occasions, including the missing one. He confirmed that he indeed gave it to Cantonna. In respect of the two other occasions, he mentioned one Kwame Atta and one Adjei as recipients. It is pertinent to note that the four names which were floated by the informants as people who usually dealt with ACP Vincent Dedzo, in the cocaine business were all confirmed during the interrogation of ACP Vincent Dedzo’s courier, Mensah Cudjoe. These confession statements were made in the presence of two friends of Mensah Cudjoe.

The Director-General of BNI Compromised His Position

The stage was set for the Director-General of BNI, Mr. Yaw Donkor to order the arrest of ACP Vincent Dedzo for interrogation and prosecution. He however refused to proceed. After knowing the truth, all that the Director-General could do was to recommend the suspension of the criminal proceedings against me. Till date, he has refused to make his findings public and to erase from the minds of the general public the notion that I was involved in the swapping of the cocaine exhibit.

Besides, by refusing to proceed against ACP Vincent Dedzo, he still has the leverage to orchestrate my removal from the Police Service by all kinds of maneuvering with the top hierarchy of the Service. All the maneuvering by ACP Vincent Dedzo to have me removed from the Ghana Police Service was to serve one purpose: That is to use me as a pawn and portray me as the one responsible for the swapping of the cocaine exhibit so as to divert attention from him as the main culprit.

Sir, your security chiefs have breached the trust reposed in them and this is the time to proceed against them decisively.

Allegation of Misconduct and my Purported Dismissal

Even though the top hierarchy of the Police Service knew the circumstances under which the cocaine exhibit got missing, they turned a blind eye to it. They tried to make a sacrifice of me and to divert attention from the main culprit. They became frustrated when the so called “strong evidence” based on which I was interdicted was not forthcoming in Court. They therefore hurriedly  put up this allegation under section  17(k) of the Police Service Act, 1970 (Act 350) which is a residual (omnibus) section, to make up a case that calling for Nana Ama Martins on a few occasions to meet  her relatives in the presence of junior officers was a conduct which tended to bring the Service into disrepute. And this allegation merits a DISMISSAL.

Sir, the offence of misconduct as contemplated in section 17(k) of Act 350 is not and can never be supported by the facts of my case.

Sir, I am appealing to your good offices to intervene in the matter as you have the legal basis to do so under the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, the Police Service Act, 1970 (Act 350), and the fact that you have already shown interest in this matter by instructing the BNI to conduct investigations into the matter, when you were then the Vice President.

Sir, my case also provides a platform for you to instill discipline into both the Police Service and the Bureau of National Investigations by calling the erring officers to order.

Sir, you swore an Oath to defend the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana which guarantees equality before the law.

Sir, even though I am minded to go public with the information I have on this issue in order to clear my name and restore some integrity to my profession, I defer to your high office being hopeful that you will intervene for sanity to prevail in the security apparatus.

Thank you so very much, Your Excellency.

………………………………………………
(DSP Gifty Mawuenyega-Tehoda)