The legal team of the opposition NDC has responded to the Special Prosecutor, accusing him of using his office to settle personal scores with the party’s flagbearer and former President, John Dramani Mahama.
Martin Amidu in a response to John Mahama calling him a coward for labelling him as Government Official One (GO1) in the Agyapa corruption risk assessment report, dared the former president to voluntarily submit himself for interrogation if he believed he was brave.
But a member of the NDC legal team Abraham Amaliba says the Special Prosecutor is on a wild goose chase because the constitution bars him from interrogating the former president.
“He is on a wild goose chase. Article 57 (6) is clear that you cannot bring an action or institute any proceedings being it criminal or civil against a person (President) in the last three or four years of leaving office. He knows he is barred by that provision and yet he is issuing statements, writing letters as if his job is that of a postmaster. I think he has a personal vendetta, he has a personal dislike for the former president (John Mahama). If you read what he has just sent out, you can see the venom, the anger in him. He has been at this for a very long time. And I think that the former president is not going take his bait. If the former president even wants to go to him voluntarily, on what basis is he saying that he should come with two lawyers.
“The former president can commandeer the whole legal team of the NDC and that is not for him (SP) to determine. So why is he determining the number of lawyers that should accompany the former president. I think he is on a wild goose chase. He knows the constitution bars him into going into this hoax of an Airbus scandal and so he wants to put things out in the public as if the former president has any questions to answer. In his own attempt to investigate this matter, the Serious Fraud Office in the UK, did not mind him at all.” Mr. Amaliba told Lantam Papanko on Starr Today
Mr. Amaliba insisted Mr. Amidu has no basis for the investigation and dared him to cause the arrest of John Mahama if indeed he has substantial evidence John Mahama is GO1.
“ If you listen to Martin Amidu himself, he used the word I surmise government official one is President Mahama. When you say you surmise, is that a word that connotes certainty? Is that a word that connotes certainty? In any case, Martin Amidu was not part of the investigation or never took part in investigating the airbus saga in the UK or any other jurisdiction. So how could he have arrived at that conclusion? And I am telling you that the rules are clear, you cannot finger somebody in a wrongful act if you have not given him the opportunity to tell his side of the story? Was Mahama part of the investigation that took place in the UK? Was he given an opportunity to be heard? So how can the SP then come out put one and two together, surmise and then we get up and all us are following him? In any case he has the right, he can arrest him (John Mahama). So let him go and arrest him” Mr. Amaliba noted.
Meanwhile, the Citizens’ Movement against Corruption has called for restraint from the Special Prosecutor as it criticized the special prosecutor over his response to the former president while also noting that the former president went overboard with his earlier criticism of Mr. Amidu.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/ Naa Dedei Tettey
