Justice Essel Mensah denies taking GH¢5,000 bribe
Mr Justice Bright Kofi Essel Mensah, one of the judges implicated in the bribery scandal, has denied accepting GH¢5, 000 bribe to induce him to acquit or grant bail to an accused person standing trial for murder.
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He said the edited video did not show anywhere that he, as a judge of the Human Rights Division of the High Court, took the money, since he rather flatly rejected it.
“The petitioner, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, for obvious reasons known to himself deleted the portion that showed him taking his money back, from the edited video footage,” he stated.
“Anas did not influence me, which is why the accused person, Mohammed Nii Baah, is still in custody,” Mr Justice Essel Mensah stated.
These were contained in a 25-point response filed on his behalf Wednesday by his counsel, Mr Garry Nimako, to the Disciplinary Committee of the Judicial Council.
On September 9, 2015, the Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Theodora Wood, ordered Mr Justice Essel Mensah to respond to the allegation of receiving GH¢5,000 bribe from the Tiger Eye PI team to induce him to acquit or grant bail to Mohammed Nii Baah, who is standing trial for murder.
Rejection
The High Court judge said in January 2015, a judicial staff member, Mr Gabriel Achana, approached him in front of the Human Rights Court that he had some cousins who had a legal problem and wanted to consult him for some legal advice.
He said for the purpose of the said legal advice, he allowed Mr Achana to come to his house.
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“When Achana arrived, he introduced the two persons who he described as his cousins to me and further went on to introduce the topic,” he said.
Mr Justice Essel Mensah said he realised that the discussion was going to centre on a case relating to Nii Baah, who had been charged with murder and a bail application was pending before him.
“I suddenly lost interest in the discussion and told Achana and his brothers who have now been revealed as Tiger Eye PI that I have been on the Bench since 1991 and thus was not interested in taking anybody’s money,” he said.
Distortion
Mr Justice Essel Mensah said the edited video demonstrably showed that at no point in time did he “negotiate, accept, receive or even touch any money from Achana or Tiger Eye PI for the purpose of granting bail to the accused person.
“Upon refusal to accept the money, they took the money away at the close of our deliberations but surprisingly that portion has been deleted from the video recording.
“I wish to respectfully state that the edited video footage which the petitioner is relying upon to say that he gave me money does not support the allegation because there is nowhere in the footage that it was captured that I received money from the petitioner.”
He added that the bribery allegation levelled against him was untrue, since the edited video, which is the primary document upon which the petitioner was grounding his petition did not show that he, as a judge, received or touched anything from the petitioner or Achana.
“The edited video rather shows Achana putting the money next to his side on the floor when the said money was flatly rejected and the money was taken back by the petitioner,” he said.
Frankness
Mr Justice Essel Mensah said he was candid with Tiger Eye PI and Achana that the case was a difficult one to heed their request, and in spite of the fact that the lawyer for the accused was his friend.
He said there was nowhere in the transcript that he “strategised” with the lawyer for the accused to grant bail or acquit him as was being alleged.
“It is important to state that in spite of my friendship with the lawyer for the accused, it had not influenced me to grant bail and that the records of the court demonstrably show that the accused person is still in custody,” he said.
He further argued that he, as a judge, did not handle criminal cases and therefore, it was factually incorrect to have acquitted Nii Baah.
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“The application before me was a bail application and that the accused person has not been granted bail by me as is evidenced by the records of the court,” he said.
He argued that if the petitioner had indeed given money to him for the purpose of securing bail for Nii Baah in January, 2015 and the said bail had not been granted as of September 2015, “it would be reasonable to expect that the petitioner would have come back to me to find out the reasons for not acceding to their request.
“Since the meeting in January 2015, I have not heard from the petitioner again,” he said.