Judge’s Accuser Uncovered

DAILY GUIDE’s checks have revealed the identity and whereabouts of the unnamed woman who reportedly told the Deputy Attorney-General, Ebo Barton-Odro that she had heard Justice Anthony Opong making prejudicial comments on the Ya Na murder trial in a beer bar.

Security sources helped DAILY GUIDE in gathering that the woman is called Rebecca Dennis aka ‘Becky’, a teacher at the St. Mary’s Boys Senior High School at Takoradi in the Western Region.

When news went round that Justice Opong was to be transferred from Sekondi to Accra, Becky was said to have picked signals that members of the Air Force Officers Mess at Takoradi were planning to host a send-off party in his honour because he is an honorary member of the mess. The party was planned for last month, August 2010.

Justice Opong, upon hearing of the planned party, was said to have told two members of the mess, one retired Squadron Leader and a security officer at the Takoradi Harbour that they should postpone the party from August because he had been assigned the Ya Na murder case and he would be busy handling it during the month of August.

Becky is said to have a close relationship with a member of the Mess and when the information got to her that Justice Opong was in charge of the Ya Na’s murder case, she swore openly to the hearing of other members of the Mess including the security officer at the Takoradi Harbour, that she would ensure that he, Opong, did not handle the case.

She is said to have stated that Justice Opong was partisan and has a bias for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and true to her strange threat, Becky informed one Kojo Ntow, a Takoradi-based National Security operative that the Judge was overly NPP and that he was not an ideal person to handle the case.

Sources said Kojo Ntow quickly relayed Becky’s message to the National Security office in Accra, after which the same message was conveyed to the office of the Attorney General and Minister for Justice.

“That was what created an impression in the mind of the A-G that Opong is an NPP judge who will not handle cases fairly where the interest of the NDC is at stake,” the source noted.

Indeed, the Attorney General’s Department has raised an objection against Justice Opong and accused him of saying that he would throw the case out.

Though the Judge has continuously denied having said such a thing, the Deputy Attorney General, Barton-Odro, has granted several radio interviews, during which he insisted that he had a hearsay recording of a woman saying that she heard Justice Opong bragging in a beer bar that he would throw out the Ya Na case.

Justice Opong has since recused himself from the case and dared Barton-Odro to provide proof of his allegations or render him an unqualified apology but the deputy A-G insists he has a tape which he would make available at the ‘appropriate’ time.

Justice Opong has also described the allegations levelled against him as “unnerving and disturbing” and taken exception to newspaper reports which described him as a “drunk judge.”

The Judge has insisted that he is not partisan and that he had several cases brought against political figures from all sides of the political divides and the outcome of these cases had always been based on the facts of the cases, vis-à-vis what the law says, but never on political colours.