Atta Akyea’s arrest gives cause for alarm – Akoto Ampaw

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Parent Category: Justice & Security

Category: Law Commentaries

Created on Tuesday, 12 July 2011 00:00

Published Date

Atta Akyea’s arrest gives cause for alarm – Akoto Ampaw

Mr Ako Ampaw, Counsel for MP for Abuakwa South, Atta Akyea says the decision by the police to press criminal charges against his client gives “cause to worry”.

The police Tuesday arrested Mr Atta Akyea and charged him with stealing and fraudulent breach of trust, and has since been admitted to GH¢100,000 bail with one surety for his alleged involvement in a $115,000 landed property transaction in which he is being accused of stealing $60,000.

Mr Akoto Ampaw noted that his client had already filed a civil suit at the commercial court division of the High Court against J. Adom Limited for failing to pay Mr Akyea, who was also the solicitor of J. Adom Ltd, for a seven-year service.

Arguing that the case was "purely a civil matter of client-solicitor relation”, Mr Ampaw was confident when he told Joy News there is “no scintilla of evidence” to support the charges against his client.

He remarked that the case involving the two should not have been treated as a criminal one, fearing there could be more to it.

Asked why he was worried even though he claimed his client was clean, he explained: “You have no idea the kind of pressures that persons who have been falsely charged with criminal offences go through between the time of being charged till the time they are acquitted, and the manner in which their names would be tarnished before acquittal. You have absolutely no idea.”

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of J. Adom Limited, Mr Kwabena Adjei Arhin, explained that the choice of going to the police to press criminal charges against Mr Akyea was theirs.

He stressed that “Civil and criminal cases are mutually exclusive. We went to the police with criminal offence against Atta Akyea for stealing. He decided to make a civil case against us in the court; we have made a counter claim at the civil court [and] that does not stop us from pursuing the criminal case we have made against him.”

He accused Mr Atta Akyea of feeding the public with falsehood.


Source: Story by Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana