The eight members of the vigilante group, Delta Force, who were freed by a Kumasi High Court for lack of evidence, are daring the Attorney-General (A-G) to order for their re-arrest, stressing that they are ever ready to meet her in court.
According to the group, though they have been discharged in a case the A-G ordered for its discontinuation (nolle prosequi), they will not hesitate to submit themselves for trial should there be a change of mind from the country’s number legal advisor.
“If they want to re-open the case, we are ready for them,” Lawyer for the group, Matthew Appiah, told Akwasi Nsiah on Si Me So on Kasapa 102.5 FM in an interview some few hours after their release by the Kumasi High Court on Wednesday, May 17, 2017.
The Attorney General, Ms. Gloria Akufo, in a statement issued on her behalf by the Ministry of Information denied ordering for the discontinuation of the case involving the Delta Force eight members who were standing trial for conspiracy to commit crime, assault on public officer among other charges.
She has therefore ordered investigations into the circumstances under which the Principal State Attorney in Kumasi entered a nolle prosequi and got the eight suspects discharged for lack of evidence.
“Preliminary investigations suggest that decision was taken without recourse even to the Director of Public Prosecution and may amount to breach of internal procedures,” the statement in part read.
Her comments came in the wake of public uproar over the handling of the case by the Attorney General’s Department in Kumasi.
The 8 suspects Abass Caesar, Samuel Yeboah, Ebenezer Opoku, Kofi Fosu, Christian Anokye, Kwame Frempong, Eric Kusi and Abdul Suleman Odudu were freed because the prosecution does not have evidence to prove its case of assault on a public officer and three other charges leveled against them.
But lawyer for the accused persons commenting further expressed the belief that the probability to re-open the case is very slim looking at the advice the A-G gave on the matter.
“The advice from the A-G indicates that my clients were not the people that banged into the court room and tried freeing the Delta Force 13. In law when you are acquitted and discharged, it means you cannot be prosecuted again for same offense. But in this case because they (Delta Force 8) were not trialed but discharged and so if the A-G will come again and advice that they should be trialed because there is a new evidence to do so, it is within her right. But I am foreseeing that the A-G having authorized her representative in the region to discontinue the case will not come again and say that I have rescinded my decision. We know that there is no evidence against my client,” noted Lawyer Matthew Appiah.
He added, “The advice from the A-G indicates that my clients were not the people that entered the court room and tried freeing the Delta Force 13. If you look at the facts, in the opinion of the Police, the Judge was their priority and therefore wanted to prevent the Judge. The Police were concentrating on the Judge during the melee and so they couldn’t identify the people who entered the court room. Out of the eight that were arrested, three of them didn’t even come to the court – four of them came to the court. All of them were arrested at Fante New Town about four hours after the incident. The Police didn’t secure the court. On that day there were three Policemen at the court but about 300 people came to court. So the Police were lambasted and in their bid to save themselves from public ridicule and for everybody to know that they are working, and out of this desperation, they went on an arresting spree. So, from day one, we know that they Police don’t have a case against my clients.”
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