Collins Dauda case: Provide witness statements within 3 weeks – Court to Prosecution
The High Court, Criminal Court 2 Division, has given the State a three-week window to file and serve on accused persons and their lawyers, all pre-trial disclosures, and witness statements in the case of Collins Dauda and 4 others.
The former Water Resources, Works and Housing Minister under the Mahama Administration, his successor, Dr. Kweku Agyeman-Mensah, a former Chief Director of the Ministry, Alhaji Ziblim, the Executive Chairman of Brazilian Construction firm, Construtora OAS, Andrew Clocanas, and a Director of RMS, the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) consultancy subcontractor, Nouvi Tetteh Angelo, are facing charges of willfully causing financial loss to the state, misapplying public property, issuing false certificates, and dishonestly causing loss to public property.
They have already pleaded not guilty to the charges and are set to be prosecuted beginning from this year.
In Court on Wednesday, however, a Senior State Attorney, Hilda Craig, said the State filed some disclosures this morning and that of the accused persons will be served on them or their lawyers, hopefully by close of the day, today.
She said the state still has “some few documents to file, and we are appealing to the court to grant us a three-week adjournment subject to the court’s convenience for us to conclude the filing of our disclosures.”
But, a defence counsel, Godwin Kudzo Tamakloe, prayed to the Court “to avoid the situation of piecemeal disclosures.”
He thus urged the court to give the state up to the end of March so that they can put all their cases together, “so that once we start the case management we are much aware of the nature of the accusation against us.”
Mr. Tamakloe told the Court that the defence counsel was “interested in providing quality legal representation to our clients and assisting the Court”, and would not be opposed to the Prosecutor’s prayer.
The Court adjourned to March 2, 2022, with the order for the state to furnish the parties with the necessary documents.
Source: Citinewsroom
