By Private legal practitioner Kweku Paintsil believes that the outburst of the third accused in the controversial ambulance trial does not have any relevance to the substantive matter.
The lawyer pointed out that the mere introduction of the purported issue of a prior conversation with the Attorney General, Godfred Dame, by the witness, Richard Jakpa, does not alter the trajectory of the trial.
In light of this, he asserts that Mr. Dame’s decision not to respond to Mr. Jakpa during the hearing, where he was physically present, was justified.
He made these remarks during his appearance on Newsfile on Saturday, June 1, 2024.
“The mere introduction of that evidence at the stage that he claimed the Attorney General was annoying him or whatever, I personally would not see how at the end of it, if we are summing up the case you can introduce that to sway or to persuade the judge or to make the judge believe that something that transpired out of the court has every influence on the outcome of the case,” he told Samson Lardy Anyenini.
Richard Jakpa has filed a court application seeking to have the charges against him dismissed or, alternatively, have the proceedings against him stayed.
His lawyers submitted the application on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
In the application, Mr. Jakpa argues that the charges and proceedings initiated by Attorney-General Godfred Yeboah Dame constitute an abuse of court processes and violate the obligations set in the 1992 Constitution.
He contends that the Attorney-General is misusing his constitutional powers by prosecuting him without justification.
Mr. Jakpa also alleges that in private conversations, the Attorney-General admitted that there is no case against him.
This assertion further supports Mr Jakpa’s argument that the prosecution is unwarranted and constitutes an abuse of power.
“The Attorney-General at whose instance the Third Accused/ Applicant is being prosecuted in the instant suit has brought the charges and instituted the proceedings in abuse of the process of the court and contrary to his constitutional obligations under articles 23 and 296 of the 1992 Constitution.”
Last week, Richard Jakpa, the third accused in the case, claimed that the Attorney-General had encouraged him to provide false testimony against Dr. Ato Forson during the trial.
