Private legal practitioner, Samson Lardy Anyenini says the course the alleged “stolen money” case involving the former Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Dapaah is taking is becoming bizarre.

His comment was triggered by the Attorney General's advise on the case. In his advise forwarded to the police, the A-G pointed out contrasting facts with the docket presented to him by the police.

“Before proceeding to offer advice on the charges, we noted that even though the monetary value of this case exceeds GHS500,000 you had already taken charge statements from the accused persons in the case and arraigned them before the court on various offences without recourse to this office. This is contrary to the earlier directives issued to you by the Attorney-General dated 21st April 2023 to submit dockets on cases in which the monetary value exceeds GHS500,000 to this Office for advice.

“It is clear that the 1st and 2nd accused who worked as house helps in the complainants' house have dishonestly appropriated huge sums of money from the complainants. The money, items and properties recovered and identified however fall below the amount of money said to have been stolen from the complainants' house.

"The 1st accused has admitted to stealing money from the complainants' storeroom. Even though the accused claims she stole $200,000 and GHS200,000, it is obvious from the properties she has acquired and the money she gave out that she dishonestly appropriated more than she has admitted to,” he said after examining the charges.

 Initially, the charge sheet indicated that the pair, 18-year-old Patience Botwe and 30-year-old Sarah Agyei had allegedly stolen US$1 million, €300,000 and millions of Ghana cedis between July and October 2022. Clothes, handbags, perfumes, jewellery, kente cloth and suits belonging to Mrs. Dapaah’s husband said to be worth thousands of dollars, are alleged to have been taken.

Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s Top Story on Wednesday, Mr Lardy Anyenini said that “the thing is that when something doesn’t hold and you try, particularly in a very desperate manner to make it stick, you end up making more mistakes and digging a gulf and not a hole for yourself.

“From what I am seeing, the matters are becoming rather bizarre, unnecessarily convoluted.”

https://myjoyonline.com/ag-takes-over-cecilia-dapaahs-case-directs-police-to-probe-ownership-of-800k-and-how-it-was-acquired/

According to him, it is disturbing for a complainant in a case to make a complaint after investigations have been completed by the police.

He questioned how such a thing could happen, adding that “it doesn’t make any sense not even legal sense.”

The private legal practitioner added that the accused lawyers will be in jubilation as a result because it makes their work easier.

https://myjoyonline.com/cecilia-dapaah-case-investigators-fail-to-produce-suspects-in-court-lawyer-suspects-foulplay/

He noted that the Attorney General’s advice points to an issue in criminal law of the need for the police to avoid duplicity in the charges.

“In law, we say that if a charge is not properly laid, you may have a situation when the trial of the accused becomes improper and unsatisfactory as we know in law. Where it appears to a court that a charge is defective either in form or substance, previously that would actually lead to the charge becoming what we used to call incurably bad. Now that has been revised somewhat,” he said.