New twist in Judge Asiamah?s prison-storming saga

Contrary to what Justice Asiamah, the Supervising High Court Judge in Sekondi, told the Chronicle in reaction to the story, captioned ?Judge Storms Prisons? published in the 20 May edition of this paper, investigations have revealed that the community tribunal did not grant bail to the two murder suspects on first appearance as Judge Asiamah was alleging.

Justice Asiamah on 25 April, this year sent a letter to the Sekondi community tribunal in which he quoted his powers as a supervising judge to revoke a bail that had earlier been granted to two suspects, namely Ambrose Akuma and Abraham Arthur, who had been charged with murder, contrary to section 46 of Act 29/60.

Justice Asiamah?s letter to the tribunal, which was read in open court, states: ?In the exercise of my oversight jurisdiction on lower courts, I hereby revoke the bail granted to the accused, who are facing a murder charge. The accused are to be arrested and brought back to the lower court to be remanded in custody.?

Based on the order, the tribunal also revoked the bail it had earlier granted the suspects and remanded them in prison custody. Counsel for the accused person, Mr Haizel, however, objected to the order given by Justice Asiamah, by contending that there is no law by which the Supervising High Court Judge can asked that a bail granted by a court should be revoked in the exercise of his supervising jurisdiction.

Haizel further contended that the Chief Justice, Justice E.K. Wiredu, himself, did that in an armed robbery case in Accra and his orders were later revoked. ?The Supervising High Court Judge can do that only if an application is brought before him. His orders are an abuse of the due process of the law. An administrative order cannot be used to set aside a court,? Haizel stated in court and added that the Attorney-General should have rather been allowed to appeal against the decision.

Counsel subsequently brought an ex-parte motion before a High Court in Sekondi for a leave to apply for an order of certiorari to quash the ruling of the community tribunal. He also applied for bail for his clients pending the determination of the case. All the reliefs sought were granted by the court, presided over by Justice Senyo Dzamefe, but when relatives went to the Sekondi Prisons to bail the suspects, they were prevented by Justice Asiamah, who had earlier gone to the prison from doing so.

Justice Asiamah admitted going to the prisons, but denied blocking the release of the suspects, when he spoke on the phone with the Chronicle after the story had been published. In the said reaction, Justice Asiamah said he revoked the bail because ?in murder cases we don?t grant bail in first appearance.?

A further investigation conducted by the Chronicle revealed, however, that the suspects were not granted bail in the first appearance as Asiamah was saying. In fact, the suspects actually appeared before the court on 18 February this year and they were remanded in police custody to reappear on 25 February this year.

Intensive investigations conducted by the Chronicle also revealed that the whole incident borders on a chieftaincy dispute in the Dadieso township. But strangely other suspects who were also arrested after the riot at Dadieso and allegedly belong to the other faction in the chieftaincy dispute have had their charge changed from murder to kidnapping, even though there is a strong suspicion that their victim was also murdered since their whereabouts are not known up to date.

Some people with legal minds who spoke to Chronicle on condition of anonymity condemned the orders which were given to the community tribunal by Justice Asiamah. ?Why didn?t he also revoke the bail granted to the other suspects in the chieftaincy dispute?? One of them asked.

Chronicle also learnt that the bail that was granted to the suspects with Asiamah later revoked was not opposed by the prosecution since the suspects had since February this year been in custody in Kumasi, whiles investigations were going on.