Police dismiss reports on cocaine-turn-sodium carbonate saga

Front Page: January 13, 2012 Story: Albert K. Salia THE Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has dismissed the two reports issued by the Justice Agnes Dordzie Committee and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) on the cocaine-turn-soda saga, describing the premises on which the findings and conclusions are based as flawed. Addressing a press conference to comment on the reports issued by the Justice Dordzie Committee and the BNI last Tuesday on the cocaine saga, the Director-General of the CID, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Mr Prosper K. Agblor, said the police had decided to provide a GH¢50,000 reward for anyone who would volunteer credible information that would lead to the unravelling of the mystery and help bring the perpetrators to book, irrespective of who they were and which institution they worked for. While maintaining the position of the police that the exhibit had not been transformed into sodium carbonate on the premises of the police, Mr Agblor observed that both reports from the committee and the BNI “have not addressed the issue of where, how, when and by whom the exhibit was swapped” and pledged the support of the police to arrive at the truth. Outlining the reasons for dismissing the findings and conclusions of the two reports, he explained that before the exhibit was tendered in court, there was no evidence that it had been tampered with, for which reason no objection was raised by the defence counsel nor the court. “As soon as the seal was broken and the court took custody of the exhibit, the police had no dealings with it again, as the chain of custody had been broken,” he said. On the basis of the pungent smell on which the committee made its findings, Mr Agblor, who was flanked by the top hierarchy of the CID and the Director-General in charge of Welfare, DCOP David Ampah-Benin, said, “The defence counsel never cited the absence of ‘a strong peculiar smell’ as one of the grounds of his objection raised on September 28, 2011 during the trial.” He said the trial judge, in ordering for a re-testing of the exhibit, never gave the absence of a ‘pungent smell’ as one of the reasons. He said “after an exhibit is examined, tested and analysed by an accredited laboratory, the seal of that laboratory is embossed on the exhibit” and indicated that it was the case with the exhibit. “When Exhibit C was tendered in court on September 27, 2011, that seal was intact and, indeed, it was the responsibility of the trial judge, the defence counsel and the prosecution to ensure that the seal was intact. So before the trial judge ordered the seal to be broken, all the parties were clear in their minds that the seal was intact,” he said, and quoted the trial judge’s testimony from the Justice Dordzie Committee Report to support the position of the police. Mr Agblor made it clear that “as soon as the seal was broken on the orders of the judge in open court, the custodial responsibility of the police ended there”. He also referred to the committee’s report which made references to exhibits getting missing at the Cocoa Affairs Court and to one such case at the Circuit Court ‘9’ in which exhibits tendered on Friday got stolen by Monday, to which the deputy registrar answered in the affirmative. He said if the exhibit was to be kept by the court, then it was reasonable and proper that the court took measures to have it re-sealed in the presence of the defence and the prosecution to ensure its integrity and security. On the argument of ‘pungent smell’ by the committee, Mr Agblor said qualitative analysis and chemical testing of cocaine was scientific, as smell was no conclusive test and, “therefore, cannot be supported by any law because testing of cocaine is scientific but not by smell”. Touching on the alleged “Tsunami tremor” comment by Lance Corporal Thomas Anyekese, the CID boss said it was unfortunate that the committee could rely on an unsubstantiated allegation to arrive at its findings and stressed that apart from L/Cpl Anyekese denying making the allegation, he (Anyekese) was never confronted by the committee with the allegation for his reaction. Mr Agblor justified the refusal of L/Cpl Anyekese to append his signature to the sample for re-testing because the chain of custody had been broken when the judge ordered that the seal of the exhibit be broken, the exhibit had been kept overnight unprotected and also the fact that he was no longer the investigator in the case. He said one did not need three years to swap an exhibit and that the 48 hours during which the cocaine was in the custody of the court was more than enough for it to be swapped, as shown by the committee in revealing that exhibits kept on Friday got stolen by Monday. Mr Agblor expressed regret that the committee “sympathetically considered the lapses by the officers of the court to be merely administrative”. On the interim report by the BNI, he said the investigative body could not demonstrate clearly the involvement of the Narcotics Unit Commander, DSP Kofi Adzei Tuadzra, in the swapping of the cocaine, except that he was the head of the unit and responsible for the security of the exhibit. “It must be noted that it is the police effort that is enhancing the investigation of the BNI….We still stand by our conviction that the exhibit did not change form while it was in police custody,” Mr Agblor stated.

Conclusions of cocaine probe unreasonable - Annan

• January 11, 2012 unpublished • Story: Albert K. Salia • A LEGAL practitioner, Mr David Annan has expressed disappointment with the conclusions of the two reports issued by the Chief Justice’s Committee of Inquiry and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) into the cocaine-turned-soda carbonate saga. • He explained that the conclusions as contained in the two reports were unreasonable and should be entertained. • Reacting to the two reports in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Annan expressed surprise that the Chief Justice’s committee failed to fault any of the court officials in spite of the fact that it identified a number of errors in the way the issue was handled at the court. • He explained that it was the staff of the court who was being blamed and also the premises cited for the swapping of the cocaine. • He said the substance had been admitted and was in the custody of the court before the objection was raised. • Mr Annan said the defence counsel could have applied for re-testing before the court took custody of the substance. • He said it was also surprising that a conclusion could be reached because of the issue of smell. • “It is not my smell that cocaine is identified unless they want to say that only cocaine has that unique smell. Unless is it scientifically and forensically tested, one cannot come to such a conclusion”, he stated. • “In any case, there were two reports. While the police report said it was cocaine, the Ghana Standards Board report said it was something else. Why did the judge choose the GSB report over the other”, he queried. • On the BNI report, Mr Annan condemned the investigative body for rushing with an interim report when it knows that the final report could prove otherwise. • According to Mr Annan, the lawyer for DSP Mawuenyega must go to court to immediately quash the BNI report on grounds of unreasonableness. • He wondered if the BNI questioned the court officials including the judge and wondered how the judge could not have been faulted for the errors. • He said it was not unusual for police personnel to get lawyers for accused persons and wondered how that could mean facilitation. • Mr Annan said both the BNI and the Committee of Inquiry failed to indicate where the swapping was done and the perpetrators. • He said holding the head of the Police Narcotics Unit responsible because he is the head does not hold. • The BNI and the Committee of Inquiry instituted by the Chief Justice to investigate the cocaine-turn-washing soda on Tuesday made public their reports of investigation. • While the BNI recommended that the Deputy Head of the Commercial Crimes Unit, DSP Gifty Mawuenyega Tehoda and the Head of the Police Narcotics Unit, DSP Kofi Adzei-Tuadzra should be held responsible for their respective roles in the transformation of the cocaine exhibit into soda carbonate, the Chief Justice’s Committee said the cocaine was not swapped on the premises of the court. • The Ghana Police Service is yet to officially respond to the two reports.

Cocaine-turn-soda carbonate – Swap not on court premises – CJ’s c’ttee

Front Page: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 Story: Albert K. Salia THE Committee of Inquiry instituted by the Chief Justice to investigate the cocaine-turn-washing soda saga says the cocaine was not swapped on the premises of the Accra Circuit Court that had tried the case. “If there was any swapping of the cocaine with any other substance, it was done before the substance was tendered in court on September 27, 2011,” it said. This was contained in a report the committee submitted to the Chief Justice on its findings. The committee was set up by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, after the Police Administration and the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) had petitioned her following a ruling by the Accra Circuit Court on December 13, 2011 which acquitted and discharged a drug suspect, Nana Ama Martins, after it was established that the substance for which she was charged was washing soda. The report said the long delay in the prosecution of the case gave room for any possible tampering with the substance, especially when it was left “in the hands of the police for three long years”. According to the report, since both the defence and the prosecution agreed that the substance that was tendered in evidence did not have the pungent smell of cocaine, “it follows that if any swapping of the substance took place, it was done before it was presented to the court”, stressing that the evidence before the committee confirmed “the fact that the substance that was presented to the court on September 27, 2011 was the same substance produced on September 28, 2011”. It said since it was the same substance that came into the hands of the committee at its sitting, “the circuit court judge and his staff cannot be held responsible for the change that occurred in the substance between October 6, 2008 when it was tested to be cocaine and September 27, 2011 when the prosecution tendered exhibit ‘C’ in court”. “The State Attorney and the defence counsel who were present in court on the day that it was opened confirmed that the substance had no such pungent smell. It must be noted that the opening and the observation by those present were done on September 27, 2011 when the seal was broken in open court for the first time. This presupposes that the substance that was opened on the first day when it was tendered did not have the characteristic smell of cocaine which the analyst confirmed is associated with cocaine,” it said. The report observed that administratively the directives given by the Office of the Chief Justice for the prosecution of the case were flouted by the prosecution. It said a State Attorney, Ms Arhin, testified that when she received the duplicate docket as the state prosecutor, the directive on it was that she could prosecute the case in any High Court of her choice. It said Ms Arhin failed to write the advice as required administratively but decided to go ahead to put the matter before a High Court. The report said although Ms Arhin prepared a charge sheet for the High Court and made efforts to get the police investigator and witnesses for the conferencing, her efforts did not yield any fruitful results. It said DSP Dery, who registered the case at Circuit Court 1 in the first instance, admitted that he was aware of the directives from the Chief Justice’s Office on the prosecution of narcotic cases and yet the case was abandoned in Circuit Court 1 (as it were) after the accused was remanded in custody. “For almost two years there was no communication between the police and the Attorney-General’s Department. It is not surprising that the accused applied for bail at another forum and got her freedom, for the law allows bail (even in non-bailable offences) in a circumstance where the accused is remanded in custody for a long period of time without trial,” it said. The committee, in its recommendations, said the practice of making an order to destroy narcotic substances immediately on the day they were tendered should be discouraged and instead the provisions of Act 714 of the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Act should be complied with. “It is also recommended that narcotic substances tendered in court should have field tests in open court on the very day they are tendered. Narcotic cases pending before the courts now should all be field-tested before trial,” it added. It further recommended that Circuit Court 1, Accra, being a specialised court, should be automated and called for a strong exhibit room for narcotic drugs and arms. “It is further recommended that the Registry of the Cocoa Affairs Circuit Court should have one registrar, who should be a chief registrar, with two deputies with the ranks of deputy chief registrar. The four-member committee, which was chaired by Mrs Justice Agnes Dordzie, included Mr Justice Abdullah Iddrisu, Mr John K. Bannerman and Nii Boye Quartey, who acted as secretary. The committee, which was to submit its report within seven days, started sitting from December 15 to 20, 2011 and took evidence from 11 people. They were Thomas Anyekese, the first police investigator; Joseph Owusu, the second investigator; DSP Kofi Adjei Tuadzra, the Head of the Narcotics Unit of the Police CID; David Agyeman Agyin of the Police Forensic Laboratory; DSP Dery, a police prosecutor, and Ms Stella Arhin, a State Attorney. The rest were Daniel Nyatsidzi, court clerk, Circuit Court, Accra; Seidu Yusif, a High Court Registrar, Cocoa Affairs Court, Accra; Frederick Tetteh Kudjonu, Registrar, Cocoa Affairs Court, Accra; Eric Kyei Baffour, Circuit Court Judge, Accra, and Kwabla Senanu, counsel for the accused person.

Cocaine-turn-sodium carbonate saga – SENIOR POLICE OFFICER IN CUSTODY

Front Page: Thursday, January 5, 2012 Story: Albert K. Salia THE Deputy Commander of the Commercial Crime Unit at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters, DSP Gifty Mawuenyega, has been detained by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for alleged suspicious dealings with Nana Ama Martins, who was at the centre of the recent cocaine- turn-sodium carbonate saga. DSP Mawuenyega was picked up on December 29, 2011 after investigators from the BNI established suspicious dealings between her and Nana Martins. A source close to the BNI told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that there were suspicions that DSP Mawuenyega facilitated the swapping of the cocaine exhibit at the court. It said DSP Mawueyega’s unit had nothing to do with the case, and yet she was said to have met the Nana Martins several times in her office on the blind side of the Police Narcotics Unit which was investigating the case. According to the BNI source, DSP Mawuenyega claimed to have known the suspect since 2008. It said police internal investigations had revealed that a female officer had been in contact with Nana Martins, facilitated the sale of her house and also got her lawyer. As soon as Nana Martins returned from the US where she had jumped bail to and was re-arrested, DSP Mawuenyega sought counsel for her. According to the source, investigations by the BNI had also established some dealings between DSP Mawuenyega and Nana Martins and her relations. Nana Martins was acquitted and discharged by the Accra Circuit Court of the charge of possessing cocaine in the trial which was aborted after the court had upheld a submission of ‘no case’ made by counsel for the accused person. The Accra Circuit Court was puzzled as to how a substance alleged to be cocaine which was seized from the accused person, confirmed by the police to be cocaine after testing and weighing 1,020 grammes later turned out to be sodium carbonate (commonly known as washing soda) after the court had ordered another test to be conducted by the Ghana Standards Board (GSB). Sodium carbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate is the chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a white solid that is crystalline but often appears as fine powder. It has a slightly salty, alkaline taste. After more than three years into the trial, the Accra Circuit Court called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to, as a matter of urgency, institute a service inquiry to determine who might have tampered or changed the drug alleged to have been found on the accused person and prescribe the necessary sanctions. The substance had been in the custody of the police and the court ruled that if the allegation was true, it was a serious indictment on efforts by the law enforcement agencies to curtail the drug menace in the country. Last December, the government directed the BNI to conduct a full-scale investigation into the case.

Family burnt to death * After explosion in sitting room

Front Page: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 Story: Albert K. Salia TRAGEDY struck a household at Asylum Down in Accra in the early hours of yesterday when a family of three were burnt to death after an alleged explosion in the sitting room of their three-bedroom storey-building. Apart from the owner of the house, David Nii Teiko Ammah, who could only be identified by his head, the two other victims, Nii Ammah’s wife, Gifty Ammah, 51, and his daughter, Phoebe Ammah, 10, were burnt beyond recognition. Two others, identified only as Tettey, 17, and Joshua, 10, who survived the inferno after residents in other apartments of the house pulled them out, are currently on admission at the Police Hospital. By the time personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) got to the scene at about 12:35 a.m., everything in the highly fortified house, including the burglar proofs, had been burnt and mangled. Nii Ammah, popularly known as Wallace, was yet to go to bed after he had returned home from a family meeting at Hansonic, near Dansoman, at which the final funeral arrangements for a deceased relative were the agenda. Nii Ammah was the Managing Director of Waham Enterprise, a construction firm and also a general merchant. A nephew of the deceased, Mr Richard Ammah, who lives in an apartment in the compound, told the Daily Graphic that it was a tenant in the house who had shouted for help on seeing the fire in the deceased’s sitting room. He said the tenant had come out of his room to find out what could have caused the dog in the house to bark for a long time, ostensibly thinking thieves had invaded the house. According Mr Ammah, it took the efforts of other tenants and some residents to break through a portion of the wall of the building to pull out Tettey and Joshua. He claimed that Tettey and Joshua said they had heard an explosion from their bedroom on the ground floor. He said the two said they had immediately informed Nii Ammah about the fire, who in turn asked the two to climb up to the top floor of the building. The nephew of the deceased said at the time they came out of their rooms, the fire had extended to the top floor, from where there was no exit nor entry, since the entire building had been fortified with burglar proofs. Mr Ammah said they did everything possible to put out the fire downstairs but it was not successful, until personnel of the GNFS responded to their call to put it out, by which time it was too late to rescue those who had died. The Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GNFS, Divisional Fire Officer Grade III Mr Samuel Sowah, told the Daily Graphic that the GNFS was yet to establish the cause of fire, as investigations were still underway.

War on Drugs

Page 10: Daily Graphic, April 11, 2012.
tory: Albert K. Salia

“WHAT do you gain writing on the activities of drug dealers? That is a business they have chosen to do to make money and I don’t see why you or any other person should be worried and disturbed by their activities”, an educated professional asked me.
“You and I, our children and children’s children and in fact, the whole society gains from reading some of the activities or any literature on drugs. If for nothing at all, what is happening in Mexico should serve as a warning to all of us that we need to join forces so that we do not get to that stage”, I responded.
In an article published in the January 29, 2012 edition of the London-based The Observer, former UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, raised the alarm bells of the activities of drug barons in West Africa and called for “urgent action now before the grip of the criminal networks linked to trafficking of illicit drugs tightens into a stranglehold on West African political and economic development”.
To Busumuru Annan, if urgent action is not taken immediately, the progress made in democratic practice, health, development and education among others stood the risk of being plunged into the dark.
“It would be a tragedy if drugs were again to plunge West Africa into conflict and destroy the progress and hard-won democratic gains of recent years. We must all come together to prevent such a disaster”, he implored.
In its 2011 Report, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted that although the role of West Africa in cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe might have decreased if judged from seizures only,“but there are other indications that traffickers may have changed their tactics, and the area remains vulnerable to a resurgence in trafficking of cocaine”.
Although there was no report on seizures from a number of countries including Ghana since 2009 to the UNODC, it said “ cocaine trafficking in West Africa persisted, and Africa, especially West Africa, remained vulnerable to a resurgence. In 2008, the largest annual seizures of cocaine in Africa were registered by Ghana, 841 kilogrammes, Sierra Leone, 703 kg, Togo, 393 kg, falling to 34 kg in 2009, Nigeria, 365 kg, rising to 392 kg in 2009 and South Africa, 156 kg, rising to 234 kg in 2009.
Change in Tactics?
The UNODC concedes that it is possible that the drug dealers have changed their tactics or diversified their routes to outwit law enforcement agencies. It is also a fact that some of the international partners for lack of confidence in the security agencies of some countries, often overlook the cases in those countries points of entry and exit and arrest the culprits in their own home countries. For someone to assume therefore, that drug traffickers were avoiding his/her country because of low level of arrests is wrong.
Over the years, drug dealers have always found ways and means to also outwit law enforcement agents. Apart from the early practice where drug couriers boldly carried drugs in their hand-bags or suitcases, we have witnessed other tactics including hiding them in foodstuffs and the common practice of swallowing the drugs.
In the case of women, some insert the drugs in their private parts, braid it as part of their hairdo, put it in sanitary pads as if they were menstruating or put them in the pampers of their children, wheel-chairs among others.
The men have often resorted to the more known tricks of swallowing, inserting it in their anus, putting the drugs in their bags among others.
Corruption:
According to the 2011 State Department Report on Ghana, criminals in Ghana launder illicit proceeds through investment in banking, insurance, real estate, automotive import, and general import businesses, and reportedly, donations to religious institutions.
It recorded 50 Suspicious Transactions Reports (STRs) between January 2010 and November 2010.
STRs are transactions which give rise to reasonable ground of suspicion that the transactions may involve proceeds of an offence or may involve financing of the activities relating to terrorism.
Broad categories of reason for suspicion and examples of suspicious transactions are false identity of client, suspicious background of client, multiple accounts, activity in accounts, nature of transactions and value of transactions.
In view of this, the US urged the government of Ghana to fully implement its customer due diligence and reporting requirements across all covered sectors and institute a beneficial ownership identification requirement, requiring the true names of all onshore and offshore entities and their beneficial owners to be held in a registry accessible to law enforcement.
It also challenged the government of Ghana to make every effort to pass asset seizure and forfeiture legislation that comports with international standards as soon as possible
The former UN chief said West Africa and other regions in Africa faced three inter-related dangers from illegal drug trafficking, namely, the threat from drug-funded corruption, which could corrode fledging state institutions and undermine good governance and the rule of law; the risk that drug traffickers linked up with other criminal elements or, worse, terrorist groups that may be trying to infiltrate and destabilise the region.
“Finally, there is the harmful impact on the health and social cohesion of local communities caused by growing drug consumption by people within the region. Evidence of this disturbing trend is already apparent”, he said and pointed to a 2009 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Report that a “third of the South American cocaine destined for Europe and shipped via West Africa was consumed locally”.
Agreeing to what the former UN Secretary-General has stated, a former National Security Co-ordinator, Mr Kofi Bentum Quantson, observed that there seemed to be a slackening pace in fighting the drug menace in the sub-region.
He said the government’s initial momentum of fighting the drug menace had not been systematically sustained because of three possible reasons.
First, it was possible that the appreciation of the drug problem as a national security issue has waned. Secondly, a certain degree of complacency appears to have developed and third, other competing national security imperatives had overshadowed the menace.
Mr Quantson said that over the last two decades or so, the country had not made any serious effort to address the drug problem holistically and that explained why people enthusiastically welcomed President J. E. A. Mills’ decision to re-open investigations into all the high-profile cases.
It was expected that that would have been the best opportunity to publicly revisit all the various aspects of the problem from arrests through to the judiciary.
He said the challenges that would have been exposed could form an informed basis to formulate more effective policies and strategies, stressing that “the failure to involve the public in identifying the chain in drug dealing is a major obstacle”.
“Unless we know what went wrong, has gone wrong and is going wrong, we will not able to deal with the problem effective”, he stated.
He advocated for an efficient enforcement regime on a sustained base.
He explained that enforcement should not be seen only in the area of arrests, successful prosecution and convictions.
The crowning point, he noted, should be the swift confiscation of the assets of drug dealers, stressing that “confiscation is key to the success in fighting the drug war”.
Discussing the confiscation of drug-related assets, he observed that, “We have not seen much of this action in the last couple of years. It is a huge deficit in the fight against the drug menace. Drug barons are encouraged to bribe their way if their ill-gotten wealth is not confiscated”, he said.
On prevention and education, he lamented that that aspect of the fight against illicit drug dealing appeared to be dying because it is not in active evidence speculating that probably the HIV/AIDS menace and other pressures seemed to have taken the steam out of the war on drugs.
“The strategy to prevent people from going into drugs should not be undermined”, he stated.
Mr Quantson noted that if that aspect was taken seriously, there were two major benefits to be realised.
First, was the fact that when people are sensitised they would refrain from drugs and secondly, and even more importantly, once sensitised, persons become part of the intelligence collection effort of the enforcement system generally.
He bemoaned the slow pace of trial of drug cases and the lack of urgency in the prosecution of drug cases.
These, he observed, created room for manoeuvring and corruption.
“Don’t forget corruption is the oxygen of the drug business. In fact, the drug industry thrives on corruption”, he said, adding that “corruption is what keeps the drug industry alive and its insurance for the future. That is a serious threat to the future of democracy”.
He maintained that Ghana’s democracy could be really at risk because of the subversive activities of drug dealers, who through bribery and corruption, could influence and destroy good governance and compromise the outcome of court cases.
He quoted Reisslaer Lee III, an authority on the drug industry in South America that “… when a criminal organisation as large as the cocaine industry searches for protection, corruption is spawned on a massive and unprecedented scale. Cocaine traffickers have bought into the political system and can successfully manipulate the institutions, the press, police, military and judiciary”.
Mr Quantson emphasised that corruption, disturbingly pervasive in the sub-region, “is the most brutal enemy of democracy. Corruption in this context should be extended to the more subtle and dangerous destabilising aspect of destroying decency, ethics, morality and the fear of God”.

3 Drug suspects granted bail

Page 3: Daily Graphic, December 1, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Accra Fast Track High Court has granted bail to three persons, including two journalists, for illegal possession of substances suspected to be narcotics.
Patrick Osei Agyemang, alias Countryman Songo, host of ‘Fire for Fire’, a popular sports programme on Asempa Radio; Bismark Selorm of Happy FM and host of the morning show on eTV, and Franklin Ayensu were granted bail in the sum of GH¢10,000 with one surety each by Justice A. Ofori-Atta.
Their pleas were not taken.
They are to reappear on December 9, 2011.
The Nima District Police Commander, DSP Justice Aduhene-Benieh, told the Daily Graphic after proceedings in court yesterday that the accused were making efforts to fulfil the conditions of the bail.
He said a State Attorney would assume full prosecution of the case at the next adjourned date.
The two journalists, in the company of five others, were arrested by a police patrol team in Accra during the early hours of Monday for allegedly possessing substances suspected to be narcotic drugs.
The three were charged for the offence after a screening exercise by the police.