Richard Jakpa, the third defendant in the high-profile ambulance trial, has submitted an application to the Accra High Court. He wants the charges against him to be dropped or the legal proceedings to be put on hold. Jakpa’s lawyer, Thaddeus Sory, filed the application on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
In his application, Jakpa claimed that the charges and proceedings brought by Attorney-General Godfred Dame are an abuse of the court’s processes and go against Ghana’s 1992 Constitution. He said that the state was actively trying to put the first accused, Ato Forson, a Member of Parliament and Minority Leader, in jail.
Jakpa mentioned conversations with the A-G, in which Dame allegedly said that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and former Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, were pushing the A-G to have Ato Forson jailed. The court papers stated that Jakpa was included in the prosecution to hide the real reason behind the trial.
Some analysts have said that the prosecution of Ato Forson and other NDC MPs was meant to give the governing party an advantage in Ghana’s hung parliament, where no party had full control.
Jakpa’s application states that the Attorney-General has brought the charges and started the proceedings in a way that abuses the court’s process and goes against his duties under the 1992 Constitution. Jakpa also claimed that Attorney-General Dame admitted in private conversations that there was no real case against him, but that the trial was aimed at Ato Forson.
Last week, Jakpa said that the Attorney-General had pressured him to give false testimony against Dr. Ato Forson, another defendant in the trial. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) released a 16-minute phone recording that seems to be a conversation between Attorney-General Dame and Jakpa. In the recording, Dame appears to be telling Jakpa how to manipulate a court sitting by asking for a medical excuse to suit Dame’s travel plans.
