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Editorial News of Friday, 1 June 2001

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Supreme Court to rule on Blay-Miezah's estate

The Supreme Court is expected to pronounce on June 27 its judgement on the seven-year old litigation over who is the rightful person to administer the estate of the late Dr John Ackah Blay-Miezah, Managing Director of the erstwhile Oman Ghana Trust, according to The Evening News.

Dr Blay-Miezah who died in June 1992 is reputed to own billions of dollars from which he has bequeathed various amounts to some named beneficiaries including the Republic of Ghana.

What seems to have delayed the wish of the deceased is the rival claims by Dr Ebenezer Ako Adjei, a minister in the First Republic and Mr Francis K. Mensah, a businessman on one hand, who are contending that a will allegedly made in 1988 by Mr Blay-Miezah is the genuine will.

This has been challenged by Dr John Robert Kells, an Irish and confidante of the late Blay-Miezah who maintains that another will made by the deceased in 1989 is the valid will.

Both an Accra High Court presided over by Mrs Justice Sawyer Williams on July 20, 1997 and the Court of Appeal by a 2-1 majority in November 18, last year ruled in favour of Dr Kells, insisting that the 1989 will signed by the late Blay-Miezah and kept in a bank in Switzerland was valid and not a forgery.

Dissatisfied with the trial by the High Court ruling that the 1988 will is a forgery, Dr Ako Adjei and Mr Mensah had petitioned the Supreme Court for the reversing of the decision.