State yet to assign court for Bawjiase orphanage case
The State is yet to assign a court to hear the case involving Mrs Emma Boafo Yeboah founder of the Countryside Children’s Welfare Home at Bawjiase in the Central Region.
When the accused person, together with her accomplice were brought to the Gender based violence court at Cocoa Affairs, the case was not called but State prosecutors were working around the clock for a court to be assigned.
Prior to them appearing in court, their Lawyers filed a motion on notice for a writ of Habeas Corpus at the Human Rights Division of an Accra High Court.
They want the court to make an order directing the officer in-charge of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service to produce the applicants before the court.
The applicants are Mrs. Boafo Yeaboah, Ernest Osei Wusu, Administrator; Justice Appiah, accountant; Justice Quarshie, teacher and Eunice Abena, nurse, who were reportedly arrested on Monday by the unit for stealing goods and donations of the orphanage.
After a lengthy grilling of all the accused persons, they were allegedly whisked to an unknown destination, making access to the suspects by their lawyers and relations impossible.
As a result, lead counsel for the suspects, Dr. Kwaku Nsiah, filed the motion at the court yesterday to compel the police to produce them (suspects) before the court.
In a 17-paragraph affidavit in support of the motion, the lawyers indicated that while waiting for the outcome of the application for bail, they saw the applicants being taken away from the office of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit downstairs into an office on the fifth floor at the police headquarters in Accra, and then sent to an unknown destination.
Dr. Nsiah stated that all the applicants were put in a waiting pick-up and taken to an unknown place for detention.
He said all attempts to know where the police had taken the applicants for detention proved futile, adding that, “The first applicant is hypertensive and diabetic and had not taken her medication since her arrest and detention, while the third applicant was undergoing malaria treatment before his arrest and detention and had also not been taking his medication.”
The lawyer for the suspects further averred that if the applicants were not allowed to continue with their medications, their condition of health was likely to deteriorate and might lead to their death.
According to the affidavit, the allegations leveled against the applicants were based on mere suspicion and speculation. The defence team therefore prayed the court to grant the application.
Source: GNA