In The Defence Of Aisha Huang
LET ME begin this article by sounding a note of caution or calling it a disclaimer. In law, there is an offense known as subjudice which simply means discussing an ongoing case in public with the view to influencing the mind of the jury or the court.
I innocently and fully absolve all media houses who will publish this article from blame. I will try, as a lawyer, to stay clear from commentary on what is going on in the courtroom, but if anybody should think there is a cause for subjudice I alone am responsible.
The dream of every court-going lawyer is to get that one magic case that will propel the lawyer into stardom, I will not say that I am already a star in the Ghanaian courtroom, but by the sheer Grace of the Almighty God, I have never envied any practicing lawyer, for the simple reason that I never know what court brief is waiting next hour for me.
The very first time I, Nkrabeah Effah Dartey, set eyes on Aisha Huang was in late 2017 at the famous Kempinski Hotel where I had been invited by a former client, now a very bosom friend, Moses.
I met Moses, seated with a Chinese lady, eating breakfast. He introduced her to me as Chinese with a legal problem, and that he wanted me to be her lawyer.
I ended up in the courtroom before my Lord Justice Ekow Baiden sitting at High Court Criminal One in Accra. The charges are related to galamsey operations.
Right from the Ghana Law School and beyond by experience, all these years I never go to court unless I have been fully paid by a client or were as a matter of Christian policy, I decide to do the case pro bono.
I come from a very humble background so my sympathies are always with the deprived.
The case of the Republic vs Aisha Huang and 3 others traveled a very long distance before Justice Baiden’s court. All through 2018, we went to court, and I had the opportunity to cross-examine all the witnesses. They were on bail, and two of the accused persons jumped bail, and the court became apprehensive.
The prosecution closed its case and it was time for us to open our defense on 18th December 2018. We went to court, innocently to open our defense only to be told that the Attorney General, then Gloria Akuffo, had entered a nolle prosequi (don’t prosecute).
His Lordship Mr. Justice Ekow Baiden, the Presiding Justice, had no option but to strike out the case and discharge the accused.
In fact, I was confused. So far, apart from a few points here and there, Justice Baiden had been very fair in the trial, and it appeared that all things going the same way, my client was going to be acquitted and discharged. Why nolle prosequi?
The Akans say that Otumfuo removes his ring over the shoulders. Government can do anything. Very well. Let us go, Aisha’s case is over. No, no, protests the Immigration officers around – Counsel, we want to take your client for some documentation and later you have her. Very well.
The next thing I heard was that Aisha Huang has been flown out of Ghana and back home to China. How? What happened? She called me on phone from China saying they just put her on a plane and flew her out of Ghana.
As a lawyer, I know that the political authority had all the power to throw any foreigner out of the land, but, I wondered: Aisha Huang? What is so special about this diminutive Chinese woman to cause such political interest?
In fact, upon sober reflection, the conclusion I came to was that Aisha’s case was so bad that the court might be compelled to acquit her and if that happens, it will be a big blow to Government, so why not truncate the trial altogether? Send her out of Ghana.
So she was sent out, 2018, 2019, 2020 – COVID-19 2021, 2022 – suddenly I saw in a newspaper published here in Ghana that Aisha has been remanded in court – Oh, when did she come back? Why did she not contact me?
Very well- but not very well, because I kept on hearing messages from BNI staff that there is a suspect in their cells who wanted to see me – and I won’t go unless I am paid!
Finally, I was compelled by my conscience to send my son, Lawyer Divine, who went, spent three hours without seeing her, and came back. The pressure mounted, I sent a female lawyer, Fafa, who, after two hours, met Aisha, and then one thing led to another, and now I and the lawyers in this firm, Nkrabeah & Associates, together with other law firms, are jointly representing Aisha Huang.
I am walking on a very tight rope against subjudice so I will not say anything whatsoever about the core matter in the courtroom on the many applications I have made for bail and been refused, whether my Lord’s basis for denying bail is proper or improper and so on .. let the law work, on………..
But let me use these pages to address the uninformed about the nuances of the law, generally.
All over the world, not only in Ghana, the basic presumption of the law is that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty and so pronounced by a court of competent jurisdiction.
Most, unfortunately, human life, from generation to generation, works almost by “word of mouth” and negative tongues with dirty agenda soil human reputation, almost with no redress.
When I was in Legon, I was JCR President of the famous Commonwealth Hall. The next JCR Government that succeeded me audited my accounts and published, a report that my government was thus far the cleanest in Commonwealth Hall records.
But, when I contested Legon SRC elections, I lost because one Commonwealth Hall student confessed openly that he used white chalk to write on walls in some halls that I was corrupt as JCR President…………….
Even though subsequently he died, I still find it very hard to forgive him – reader, for no reason, every bitterness, sheer hatred, people soil other people’s names with raw inventions, calumny, and terrible lies, and if you don’t get a day in court, if you don’t get a lawyer to defend you, if you don’t get a judge who will be impartial and fair, they will be pushing you slowly to a shallow grave.
Reader, it is terrible.
Aisha Huang was arrested in late August 2022 and slapped with two counts of selling minerals without a license. On 2nd September, the Prosecutor said “Investigations are continuing”. On 14th September, they said again “Investigations are continuing” and yet again on 27th September, they said, “Investigations are continuing”.
When I pleaded with the court and pleaded with the Judge to transfer her to prison custody, BNI woke up from their slumber and set up an 11–man panel and reader, an 11-man panel, to interview this girl for three days, hunting for excuses to nail her.
For sheer hatred, people soil other people’s names with raw inventions, calumny, and terrible lies.
What amuses me beyond tolerance levels are comments by those educated in our society who ought to know better, making all manner of accusations against me, for the crime of being the lawyer for Aisha Huang.
The other day the noisy Captain Smart was literally calling me a fool for declaring to defend AISHA but when he went foul of the law, he sought refuge in lawyers coming to his defense.
Let me make the records straight – when I was Deputy Minister of State from May 2001 to May 2006, I never stepped in the courtroom. Right now, I am a private legal practitioner, subject to the Ghana Bar Association, licensed to practice, my number is e/GAR /02094/22.
The other day at Nkawkaw High Court, I was humbled to my knees when after openly stating that I was 37 years at the Bar, the next lawyer opposing me quietly told the court, ‘I am 53 years at the Bar!’
If it were to have been Achimota School, I would have been described as a “Nino Boy ….”
Reader, let us pray for Aisha Huang. Let all of us do our work, sincerely and humbly, and let the truth come out. Let justice prevail.
Is this our land not of Freedom and Justice?