Police can charge persons keeping Bawumia’s car - Ace Ankomah

Renowned legal practitioner Ace Anan Ankomah says the Ghana police on their own can compel the production of the accident vehicle of opposition politician Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

The police do not necessarily need to invoke the powers of a court – as they stated in their letter to the New Patriotic Party – to direct that the accident vehicle be handed over, he said.

The Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Ghana Police Thursday wrote to the opposition NPP directing that the vehicle with which the party’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2012 election had a serious accident be produced .

The investigators said they had information that some leaders of the NPP caused the accident vehicle to be towed to an unknown location – an allegation the NPP flatly rejected.

The police in their letter said, “Your failure to cooperate with us in this investigation will compel us to seek assistance of the law court for further action…”

But speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Friday, Mr. Ankomah said “the police have the power to compel the production of the vehicle without going to court.”

He said the person(s) suspected of keeping the vehicle can be arrested and charged with interfering with police investigations because a accident scene is a crime scene.

Mr. Ankomah expressed regret that politics had become so central in the country’s affairs that there was inertia in even key institutions such as the police.

“This is a nation where politics has so beclouded us that even simple ordinary things get elevated to some political height and suddenly even the police feel less empowered and think they need an order from the court [to retrieve an accident vehicle]” he stated.

The former law lecturer said “the police have the power to say, who were those involved in the accident? Report to the nearest police station? Where is the vehicle? Produce it or else we will charge you and put you before court. And the police can move into your house and pick the accident vehicle.”

Dr. Bawumia was involved in an accident last Sunday whilst returning from the coronation ceremony of a village chief at Bole in the Northern Region.

Barely 24 hours after the incident in which the politician, his driver, bodyguard and press aide all escaped unhurt, the General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, mired the accident in politics by alleging that President John Mahama, who comes from Bole, National Security and the governing NDC engineered the accident.

Now the police say they cannot locate the badly mangled Toyota Land Cruiser V8 and are accusing the NPP of hiding it.