High Court Overturns Guilty Conviction

An Accra High Court has set aside a conviction against one Emmanuel Achia Yao, a former staff of Vodafone Ghana, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment for stealing.

On May 18, 2015, an Accra Circuit Court, after trial sentenced Emmanuel, together with four others, who were then employees of Vodafone Ghana on charges of conspiracy to commit crime and stealing.

Mr Achia not satisfied with the conviction and sentence appealed to the High Court, which set aside the conviction.

“I find the trial judge’s rejection of the submission of no case a misdirection in law amounting to gross miscarriage of justice,” the presiding judge Justice Justin K. Dorgu said in his ruling.

The court presided over by Justice Justin K. Dorgu said on the whole, the appeal against the conviction and sentence of the appellant in respect to the circuit court to wit stealing succeeds.

“I hereby, set aside the said conviction with its consequential orders and instead substitute a verdict of not guilty and an acquittal,” he said.

The Court was of the view that the appellant was only at the recovery scene to assist in an official operation, working under supervision and taking orders from them.

The High court judge said there was no iota of evidence of the appellant’s complicity in the alleged theft of the extra cables.

Justice Dorgu said no knowledge on the appellant’s part was proven to show any complicity and criminal intention of the team leader and any of the accomplices.

He said this was a typical case that should not have gone beyond the close of case of the prosecution.

He said all the vital ingredients in a charge for stealing were absent against the appellant and that the trial judge erred in calling upon the appellant to open a defence.

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