Youth activist Ivan Kyei Innocent says the Court of Appeal's decision to acquit former MASLOC Chief Executive Sedina Tamakloe should not be interpreted as proof of her innocence entirely, saying that the outcome was the result of poor case preparation and the prosecution's failure to meet the standard of proof required.

Speaking on Prime Insight on Joy Prime on Saturday, 1 August, while discussing the acquittal, Mr Kyei said the judgment points more to poor case preparation than to a finding that Tamakloe did nothing wrong.

"I am saying that nobody will read this judgment and come to the conclusion that Sedina is innocent," he said.

"She is not innocent. It's just that somebody did a poor job."

According to him, the judges were unable to uphold the conviction because the prosecution failed to meet the legal threshold required in criminal trials.

"In criminal prosecution, it is not just about whether you are innocent or guilty. You need to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, not foolish doubt," he explained.

"But Sedina cannot call herself innocent. If you look at the circumstances, she cannot. To convict somebody, certain standards must be met, and the standard in criminal prosecution is proof beyond reasonable doubt."

When asked by the programme host, Blessed Sogah, who he believed had done "a poor job", Mr Kyei pointed to what he described as serious flaws in the way the charges were prepared and presented before the court.

"An accused person was charged on almost seven different categories of offences, including stealing, conspiracy and money laundering," he said.

He said that the charge sheet itself reflected what he described as haste on the part of prosecutors.

"They drafted almost 80 charges and, because people were in a hurry, even the numbering was wrong. The judge dealt with it."

He said that although the case involved 80 counts, there were errors in the numbering of the charges, with the sequence jumping unexpectedly.

"It was 80, but then they jumped to 52. On the charge sheet, there was a mistake. The judge deliberately took his time to discuss that, just to give you an idea of the poor job that was done."

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Christine Tamakloe-Attionu, was convicted in April 2024 and sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labour after being found guilty on 78 counts, including causing financial loss to the state, stealing, conspiracy to steal, money laundering and breaches of public procurement laws.

Following her extradition to Ghana in June to serve her sentence, the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction. The court held that the prosecution failed to prove its case against the former MASLOC boss beyond a reasonable doubt, effectively setting aside the convictions entered against her by the High Court.