The family of former Ghana National Petroleum Authority (GNPC) boss Tsatsu Tsikata say they would pursue his case in court until his conviction is overturned. Mr Tsikata was sentenced in July 2008 for willfully causing financial loss to the state and misappropriating public funds. President John Agyekum Kufuor on the last day of office granted Mr Tsikata an unconditional pardon. Joy FM correspondents reported that prison wardens guarding the former GNPC boss at the Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital where he has been on admission on transfer from the Nsawam Medium Prison due to ill-health for the past two months, have been withdrawn. His family has maintained the former GNPC chief executive is innocent and would pursue his case in court to ensure that he is pronounced innocent of the charges preferred against him. Misuse of power? Fui Tsikata, lawyer and brother of Mr Tsikata described the conviction of Tsatsu Tsikata as sheer misuse of state power and the pardon “a further instance of that.” “It is part of the plan that they began with and on their last day they want to use whatever they have left,” he said. Mr Fui Tsikata said although Tsatsu would not reject the pardon, pursuing the court processes to remove the disabilities he might suffer is the next line of action for the family. “The courts which have been misused in this matter must redeem themselves by doing the just thing and we would offer the opportunity by pursuing the appeal,” he stressed. Under Ghana’s constitution, an ex-convict is deemed unfit to hold certain public positions including the presidency. Disabilities A legal analyst and lecturer at the University of Ghana Law School, Dr Ramond Atuguba, has however endorsed the family’s decision to still pursue the matter in court. He said an examination of Mr Tsikata’s case put out “a certain illegitimate utilisation of state power” for an unjustifiable incarceration of the former GNPC official. Dr Atuguba said although a pardon has been given without condition, questions still arose as to why Mr Tsikata was, perhaps, unjustifiably convicted. He maintained that many of the judgments that had been passed on Mr Tsikata’s case had rather “turned the law upside down.” “It is important for the integrity of the law and it is important for posterity that we give the judiciary a chance to restate the law” in its proper place, he said. Story by Fiifi Koomson