High Court stays trial of former NCA officials

The Commercial Court (High Court Division) in Accra trying former officials of the National Communications Authority (NCA) for allegedly causing financial loss to the state, Thursday stayed proceedings.

The stay of proceedings follow an application by counsel for the first and fifth accused persons for the Supreme Court to determine a number of issues, including whether upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 19(2), an accused is entitled to pre-trial disclosures and if yes, at what point the prosecution should make those disclosures in view of the 48 hour rule to produce suspects before court.

Counsel also wants to know if an accused person is entitled to disclosure of documents that will not be tendered before the court.

Mr Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, the former NCA Board Chairman; Mr William Tevie, the former Chief Executive Officer of the NCA; Nana Owusu, a former board member; Alhaji Osman, former Deputy National Security Coordinator; and Mr George Oppong, a private businessman, have all pleaded not guilty to various counts of causing financial loss of some $4 million to the state.

In staying proceedings, Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, the trial judge instructed the court registrar to forward relevant documents to the Supreme Court for determination of the issues and adjourned indefinitely.

Graphic Online correspondent, Mabel Aku Baneseh covering proceedings, said the referral is expected to be done by close of this week to enable the Supreme Court have the case by early next week.

All the accused persons were in court.