Ghana Court of Appeal acquits Tagor and Abass in major narcotics case
via GhanaWeb11 min read
Kwabena Amaning, known as Tagor, and Alhaji Issah Abass, who were sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2007 for drug-related offenses, have been acquitted and discharged by the Court of Appeal. The two businessmen were at the center of a controversial case involving the disappearance of 76 parcels of cocaine from the MV Benjamin vessel. The Court of Appeal's three-member panel, chaired by Mr Justice Peasare, ordered their immediate release after they had spent a year and seven months in prison. The court found that the charges against them were defective and the prosecution failed to establish the offenses. It noted that the prosecution could not specify the location or date of the alleged crimes, creating gaps in the evidence. The Court of Appeal also criticized the trial judge for overruling a submission of no case and questioned why the prosecution did not call Assistant Commissioner of Police Kofi Boakye as a witness. Furthermore, the court stated that the whereabouts of the 76 parcels of cocaine remained a mystery, and a recorded conversation between Tagor, Abass, and Kofi Boakye was a private attempt by Boakye to clear his name, not a confession. The court dismissed the prosecution's claims regarding conspiracy and the alleged sale of cocaine, stating that such transactions were not proven and that local jargon for drugs could not be legally supported.
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This summary was AI-generated from a story originally published by GhanaWeb.
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