Stop showing off in my yard – Judge of Opuni's lawyer

General News of Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Source: dailyguidenetwork.com

2019-02-19

The lawsuit of Ghana's former Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Ghana's former director general (COCOBOD), Mr Stephen Opuni, and Seidu's business man Agongo, while the defense lawyers clashed with the trial judge.

There was a "heated" dispute between Samuel Codjoe, Dr. Opuni's lawyer; Benson Nutsukpui, lead counsel for Seidu Agongo and Judge Clémence Honyenugah, trial judge, for the duration of the cross-examination of the second state witness.

At the beginning of yesterday's proceedings, the judge warned Mr. Nutsukpui to speed up the cross-examination of the second prosecution witness to allow the state to call his next witness.

The prosecution, under the direction of Yvonne Attakora-Obuobisa, Director of Public Prosecutions, introduced the witness box to testify about four months ago.

The second witness, Dr. Alfred Arthur, soil scientist at Cocoa Research Institute Ghana (CRIG), entered the witness gallery on October 29, 2018 and is still under cross-examination.

This illuminated the judge 's decision to reprimand the defense attorney to expedite the cross – examination.

Defense counsel, however, lamented that the judge was trying to speed up the proceedings.

Benson Nutsukpui therefore requested that the judge's statement be recorded, but the judge clarified that it was simply a council that should not be registered.

Samuel Codjoe then stood up and accused the judge of doing the same during the cross-examination of the witness.

The discussion lasted almost 20 minutes and the judge, who was not satisfied with Samuel Codjoe's constant interjections in "I want to add my voice," told him to stop "standing up" in court.

At one point, the judge also asked Mr. Codjoe not to "put words" in his mouth.

The discussion finally calmed down and Benson Nutsukpui continued his cross-examination of the witness.

Context

The former head of COCOBOD, head of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, was dragged to court with a certain Seidu Agongo, a businessman and CEO of Agricult Ghana Limited. .

The two defendants face 27 counts of indictment, including fraudulent fraud, deliberate financial loss to the state, money laundering, corruption of an official and violation of the law on public procurement.

Dr. Opuni is accused of "instigating Mr. Agongo and Agricult Ghana Ltd to defraud COCOBOD in the amount of 43,120,000 GH ¢ between January 2014 and November 2014.