An Accra High Court has set June 13, 2024, to rule on whether or not to admit into evidence the audio conversation between Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame and businessman Richard Jakpa.
The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame and the third accused, Richard Jakpa, are both parties involved in the ongoing ambulance case.
Mr Jakpa had alleged professional and prosecutorial misconduct by the Attorney General in the case in which he was accused of causing the state a €2.3 million loss.
According to him, the AG had repeatedly sought his assistance to implicate the Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, also an accused in the case.
The AG’s team objected to an attempt by lawyers for Minority Leader Dr Cassiel Ato Forson to tender into evidence the audio conversation between the duo.
The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, said there was no proper foundation for the admissibility of the audio.
“There’s no relevance to admit this tape into evidence. It doesn’t assist this court to arrive at a decision regarding the substance of this case,” she said.
Additionally, the Director of Public Prosecution argued that aside from relevance, the audio failed the constitutional checklist for admissibility.
She added that the audio infringes the right of the Attorney General to privacy when no crime had been committed.
But the Minority Leader’s legal team, led by Dr Abdul Aziz Basit Bamba, disagreed.
He argued that the audio recording hinged largely on the agreement between the government of Ghana and the Letter of Credit that was subsequently issued, making the 16-minute recording an important piece in the ongoing trial.
According to him, the AG’s posture in the audio recording constitutes willful oppression of the accused.
“What this audio indicates is that Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame who is the guardian of the constitution is seeking to subvert the same constitution…It is not his (Godfred Dame’s) role to be telling an accused person to accept his theory and that there would be no difficulty,” he stressed.