The trial of William Ato Essien, who has been charged with two others for allegedly playing various roles in the collapse of Capital Bank has temporarily been put on hold.
This is to allow the Court of Appeal to rule on an earlier application, pending before it. The court is set to make its pronouncement on May 23.
The Accra High Court, where the substantive case is being heard had earlier rejected an application from the defendant to suspend the proceedings because of a pending appeal against its decision to admit unsigned documents into evidence.
However, Counsel for Mr. Ato Essien, Baffuor Gyau Bonsu Ashia, told the court that the processes were filed on Wednesday, May 4, with the Court of Appeal expected to hear the matter on May 23.
Mr Ashia urged the trial court to adjourn and await the court’s ruling.
The trial judge, Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, said he did not find any clear provisions in the rules of the court, whether civil or criminal proceedings, that precluded the court from proceeding with the trial since an application for a stay of proceedings at the appellate court could not operate as the stay of proceedings itself.
However, the trial judge exercised the court’s discretion and suspended proceedings temporarily.
The case has been adjourned to Wednesday, May 25, 2022.
Background
Capital Bank was one of the first banks that collapsed after a massive clean-up of financial institutions by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) starting in 2017.
On August 14, 2017, its licence and UT Bank were revoked by the BoG after the BoG had declared them insolvent.
The BoG allowed the state-owned bank, the GCB Bank, to acquire the two banks to protect depositors’ funds and enable them to stay afloat.
The hurricane that swept through the banking sector due to the collapse of the two banks heightened in August 2018 when the central bank collapsed five other indigenous banks and merged them into one entity — Consolidated Bank, Ghana.
Charges
The accused have been slapped with stealing contrary to section 23 (1) and 124 (1) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), Money Laundering contrary to section 1 (1) (a) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2008 (Act 749) and conspiracy to stealing contrary to section 23 (1) and 124 (1) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29).
In all, the founder of the defunct bank William Ato Essien is charged with eight counts of stealing, eight counts of money laundering and three counts of conspiracy to steal, making it a total of 19 counts.
The Managing Director of MC Management Services, Tetteh Nettey, faces two counts of stealing, two counts of money laundering and two counts of conspiracy to steal, making his a total of 6 counts.
On the other hand, the Managing Director of the bank Fitzgerald Odonkor is charged with seven counts of abetment of crime, namely stealing.
The state estimates that the accused persons have misappropriated GHC 262,500,000.00.