Tsikata's defence team addresses court

Accra, June 1, GNA - Prof. E.V.O. Dankwa, Attorney for Tsatsu Tsikata, a former Chief Executive of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), who is standing trial for causing financial loss to the State, on Thursday told an Accra Fast Track Court (FTC) that his client was innocent of all the charges preferred against him. Prof. Dankwa, who was addressing the FTC on behalf of Tsikata to close his case, stated that the only possible result of the trial was the acquittal of the accused.

The Attorney said the facts on which these charges were brought were exactly the same as those for which Tsikata had been sent before three previous courts - a Circuit Tribunal, another Fast Track Court and the normal High Court.

Tsikata is charged with three counts of wilfully causing financial loss of about 2.3 billion cedis to the state through a loan he, on behalf of the GNPC, guaranteed for Valley Farms.

The accused is also charged with misapplying public property. Prof. Dankwa said the charges against the accused remained flawed in terms of the Constitutional provisions against retroactive legislation and that an existing law should to be the basis of any charge.

The trial judge, Mrs Justice Henrietta Abban, an Appeal Court Judge sitting as a High Court Judge, has admitted him to a self-recognisance bail, after he had denied the charges.

Before his address, the Prof. Dankwa reminded the court of certain corrections that had to be effected and wanted the court to do so, but the judge asked him to read his address and deferred the corrections to the next sitting.

Prof. Dankwa said the evidence from prosecution witnesses exonerated his client completely.

He stated that in the case of one of the witnesses, Mr. Jude Arthur, it was obvious that he did not speak the truth to the court, adding that his lies were exposed by testimony from other prosecution witnesses, documents that were tendered and evidence of the defence. The Attorney asserted that when the case went to the normal High Court, the accused objected to the charges, which had been presented on the basis of acts allegedly done "in or about February 1993". The objection was based on Article 19(5) of the Constitution prohibiting retroactive criminal charges, he said.

He contended that the court upheld the objection. He referred to a ruling by Mr Justice J.A. Ansah, now a Supreme Court judge, in upholding the objection, in which he said: "One of the pillars upon which our criminal jurisprudence firmly stands, is that there can never be a crime or punishment, except as may be, in accordance with the law existing at any particular time".

He stated: "In the submissions of the Counsel for the accused, the learned Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) replied that the phrase - 'in or about February 1993'- may also mean July 1993, for the transaction in question was continuous".

Prof. Dankwa stated further: "I must say with he greatest respect to the learned DPP that upon no stretch of the imagination can ...in or about February 1993 be construed to mean any time after July 1993", when the law was passed.

The Attorney said that the construction was "a violent twist of words" and obvious disregard to months and time, adding "I reject it as being too extravagant".

Prof. Dankwa noted that the prosecution had charged Tsikata with an offence, which was not known to the law. "It needs no telling that the article in question, to wit, Article 19(5) has been sinned against in no small measure".

Prof. Dankwa said: "The plain truth still holds as the case presented by the prosecution in this court on the first three counts remains a case 'founded' on the act of the accused in signing on March 11, 1991 a Guarantee Agreement on behalf of GNPC of which he was then Chairman and Acting Chief Executive".

The Attorney argued that if at the time the individual did the act there were no law rendering the act an offence, it would be against the principle of legality to subsequently pass a law rendering that past act an offence.

"No law made after a fact, can make it a crime, for before the law, there is no transgression of the law".

He averred that these words aptly described the unconstitutional nature of what the accused had had to face in respect of the first three counts.

Prof. Dankwa said there was no suggestion that the Guarantee Agreement was illegal when entered into, adding that at the time the accused signed the Guarantee Agreement, Section 179A(3) of the Criminal Code, Act 29, as amended, did not exist.

"Yet it is that act which, on all the evidence brought by the prosecution, forms the foundation of the first three counts against the accused."

In respect of the fourth count, Prof. Dankwa said the charge was laid under a different statute -"Public Property Protection Decree 1977 (SMCD 140)", which was in existence in March 1991.

"So our submission on retroactive criminalisation does not apply to that count, but we shall demonstrate why that charge against the accused is also not warranted by anything he did in March 1991 or any other time".

Madam Gertrude Aikins, Principal State Attorney, Mr Augustines Obour, Ms. Gyemfua Sarpong and Ms Owusu Adansi Ofori, all from the Attorney General's Department, represented the Republic.

The defence team includes Major (rtd.) Rowland Agbenato. The case was adjourned to June 12, for the continuation of Defence's address.