The High Court Judge hearing the controversial ambulance case has set Thursday, June 6 to deliver a ruling on whether to halt the prosecution of the Minority Leader, Cassiel Ato Forson and the other accused person in the case, Richard Jakpa.
The two accused, filed separate applications seeking to injunction their prosecution on account of the damning allegations made by the third accused person, Richard Jakpa, against the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, that he coerced him(Mr Japka) to falsify testimony against Ato Forson to get him jailed and that the Attoney General said he was under pressure to prosecute the former Deputy Finance Minister, who is now the MinorityLeader of Parliament.
You will recall that during cross-examination, Mr. Jakpa accused the Attorney General of contacting him at odd hours to implicate Ato Forson.
After that, the NDC aired an audio conversation between Richard Jakpa and Godfred Dame to substantiate the allegations.
Lawyers of Ato Forson then filed an application praying the court to declare a mistrial while Richard Jakpa filed an application asking the court to strike out charges against them.
Before the filing of these applications, lawyers of Ato Forson had filed an application for a stay of proceedings pending an appeal of a ruling of the court.
This ruling compelled lawyers of Ato Forson to cross-examine Richard Jakpa before the Attorney General undertakes his cross-examination.
Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe noted when the case was called for hearing that she would deliver rulings on all applications on the next adjourned date this Thursday.
The judge, however, allowed for counsel for the third accused, Richard Jakpa, to raise objections to aspects of a sworn statement from the office of the Attorney General opposing his application for the charges to be struck out.
Thaddeus Sory who represents Mr Jakpa argued that the facts in the Attorney General’s affidavit were deposed to by a principal state Attorney who has no personal knowledge of the facts. He argued that the said principal state Attorney did not show how he attained knowledge of the facts deposed to.
Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame, however, opposed the objection on grounds that the principal state attorney knows the facts as deposed to in paragraph one of the sworn statements which states that the principal state attorney obtained knowledge of the facts in the line of his duty.
Godfred Dame further asserts that the objection is ill-moved as the best way to challenge the paragraphs was for the accused to have deposed to affidavits challenging the facts and not to object on points of law.
