Deputy Attorney-General Alfred Tuah-Yeboah has denied claims against him that he prejudged the ambulance case in the media.
This was after Member of Parliament for Asante Akim North Kwame Andy Appiah-Kubi said that the comment he made on the admissibility of the tape recording between the third accused Richard Jakpa and the A-G Godfred Dame in the ambulance case, was unnecessary.
Appiah-Kubi says the comments of Deputy A-G amounted to predetermining the matter which is currently before the court.
“Admissibility of evidence is based on its relevance, if the trial judge thinks it is relevant he or she is supported by law to admit it.
“The Deputy A-G’s comments that it has no relevance to the proceedings or the result was unnecessary, it was over the bar. That statement is contemptuous of the court because you prejudge the case,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 on Saturday June 15.
But reacting to this matter on the same show in a telephone interview, Mr Tuah Yeboah denied evaluating the case in the media.
“I have been a lawyer for 23 years i know the areas you can cross and you can’t cross. nowhere have I evaluated the case,” he said.
Mr Tuah Yeboah had earlier said that the prosecution is not minded about the contents of the audio recording that took place between the Attorney-General Godfred Dame and the third accused in the Ato Forson trial Richard Jakpa.
Asked how bad or damaging the audio recording is to the case while speaking to journalists after court proceedings on Thursday, June 13, he said “Not at all, because this audio is nothing that you have heard, in terms of the content we are not minded about that because it is something that is in the public domain.”
The High Court on Thursday, June 13 admitted the audio recording into evidence.
“High Court admits audio recording between Richard Jakpa and Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame into evidence,” TV3’s Laud Adu Asare who was in court on Thursday, June 13 reported.
Last week Thursday, June 6, when the trial judge Justice Efia Serwah Asare-Botwey dismissed the application for mistrial filed by lawyers of the first accused Dr Ato Forson, she went ahead to say that the tape did not reveal any instruction from Godfred Dame for Mr. Jakpa to implicate Ato Forson.
The judge after dismissing the application, however, advised Attorney-General Godfred Dame to recuse him from the ongoing case in the interest of justice and and the public.
The court also dismissed the application for mistrial filed by Ato Forson, Adu Asare further reported.
Lawyers for the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson filed a supplementary affidavit in support of the motion on notice for an order of mistrial, injunction and or stay of proceedings in the ongoing ambulance case.
This followed the allegations made against Godfred Dame by Richard Jakpa.
The trending recording of a telephone conversation between Mr. Jakpa and the Attorney-General Godfred Dame, had been annexed to the affidavit.
Also, certain quotations contained in some media reports, particularly by Accra-based Asaase Radio that border on alleged professional misconduct on the part of the A-G, had been cited and annexed to the process.
The Minority Leader averred that the Attorney-General had embarked on reprehensible and unlawful conduct, conduct unbecoming of an Attorney- General, let alone the Minister for justice, for the sole purpose of securing his conviction. And that, if the Court were to ignore these rather grave matters to proceed with the trial regardless, that would amount to a real travesty of justice, as the Court would have disregarded credible and cogent claims of misconduct by the Attorney General.
He argued that if a mistrial was not ordered and such blatant disregard for the rule of law and the ethics of prosecution by no mean a person than the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice was glossed over and allowed to pass without any consequences, public confidence in the administration of justice would be adversely affected.
The post Ambulance trial: Tuah-Yeboah denies prejudging the matter, says he never evaluated Jakpa’s tape anywhere first appeared on 3News.
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