Posted: Daily Guide | Tuesday, 08 March 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The man at the centre of a raging controversy over claims that some influential members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) advised him to lie about the ‘Amina bus sex’ story, Michael Ofosu Frimpong, has made another revelation about the ongoing trial.
DAILY GUIDE has stumbled on an audio recording in which Michael Frimpong, who is now at the CID cells at the Police Headquarters, was overheard telling someone in a telephone conversation that state prosecutors made him lie against the NPP chieftains he named, during his appearance in court as a witness for the prosecution in the Amina Yutong bus mass rape saga, as those who bribed him to corroborate the Amina story.
The NPP bigwigs named in the alleged saga were party chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Assin North MP Kennedy Agyapong, former Finance Minister Yaw Osafo Marfo and a private legal practitioner, Professor Ken Attafuah.
Frimpong related that he was picked up from his cells at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at the Police Headquarters by the investigator handling the case, whose name he gave as Issa Mohammed.
According to him, Mohammed took him to the office of the prosecutor, Paul Asibi Abariga, where Mr. Abariga, in-turn took him to the office of Attorney General, Martin Amidu.
At the office of the Attorney General, Frimpong said he was told that the only condition under which he could be let off the hook was if he discounted his earlier claims of being on board the said bus at the time of the incident and mentioned the names of the NPP stalwarts as those who asked him to go and make those claims on Adom FM.
Though efforts to reach Martin Amidu have proved unsuccessful, the prosecutor handling the case, Paul Abariga, has denied ever taking Frimpong to the AG’s office to cook up a story for him to tell, describing it as untrue.
“The AG does not know him by face but by the offence. He gave his evidence on his own volition and in his own handwriting which he dully signed himself,” was what he said in an interview with DAILY GUIDE last Friday.
But Frimpong insists on his claim, saying that “he (Martin Amidu) even told me that when they take every case to the court, they lose so I should help them to win this case.” Frimpong insisted that even what he said in court was written for him to rehearse before going to court.
According to the suspect, the NPP gurus had done no wrong and that his testimony was influenced by the prosecutor.
He claimed that Kennedy Agyapong was roped into the matter because they said he was a thorn in the flesh of the NDC administration.
Frimpong had earlier told DAILY GUIDE in previous conversations while at Nsawam Prisons that the police investigator had taken him to Mr Abariga’s office twice, urging him to testify for the state.
Frimpong said he was compelled by circumstances to tell the truth because he was still being held in custody despite an assurance to release him if he would implicate the NPP gurus.
“I have also been childish; I will disgrace them and I will…I am ready to face any death and I am ready to put every incident that took place at the Attorney General’s office out,” he said.
Michael Frimpong had made claims on Adom FM that he was onboard the Yutong bus on which passengers, including Amina, were made to have sex with one another at gunpoint by suspected armed robbers.
Amina was saved because she claimed she was in her menses.
Frimpong was subsequently arrested by the police after telling Great FM, an Achimota-based private radio station, the same story for allegedly ‘causing fear and alarm’- a case in which he is being prosecuted.
However, under inexplicable reasons, Frimpong later became a prosecution witness in the Amina case.
He claimed that his appearance in court was at the instance of the Attorney General who had promised dropping the charges against him if he would implicate the NPP chieftains.
The last time he appeared in court, Frimpong, among other things, alleged that he was offered GH¢90,000 (¢900million) by the named NPP men to go and corroborate Amina’s story- a claim they have all rubbished and treated with contempt.
Mr. Abariga told DAILY GUIDE “he wanted to go and get the ticket from Kumasi for the Amina case but when police sought to accompany him, he broke down and confessed that what he sought to do initially was a lie and that he was sponsored and coached by his two lawyers and those he gave their names.
“He also said when he went to Adom FM, he was going to negate Amina’s account but, upon reaching Adom FM, his sponsors asked him to rather go and corroborate Amina’s story.
I will never cook up a story because it will not only be unprofessional but also unethical because I’m not conviction-minded but a justice officer,” said the state prosecutor.
He stated, “I will not want to engage in any media trial because I know the consequences of such actions.
All I have or I believe in is that I will never want to engage in any conduct that tends to bring the authority and administration of the law into disrespect or disregard, because it is essential to maintain the existence of the legal system of any state that the court should have ample powers to enforce its orders and to protect itself or its procedure.
I desire to recognize and uphold this principle at all times as a legal practitioner and a prosecutor for that matter.”
On this basis, the state prosecutor said, “I cannot be seen to have cooked up a story in respect of the instant case because I do other cases as well and irrespective of the geographical, ethnic or partisan origin, all I do is to study a case, advise on it and possibly do prosecute where it is prosecutable as allowed by law.”