Businessman convicted for forgery

By Helena Selby
An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced a businessman to five years imprisonment for forging the land document of his business partner. The convict, Adu Bediako, went behind his business partner to cancel an agreement they made on land they bought together, and assumed sole ownership of the property.

The court, presided over by Mrs. Patience Mills Tetteh, found Bediako guilty on charges of forgery of document and altering forged document.

According to the court, the prosecution had been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused person indeed, tampered with the documentation of the sale of the property, and therefore, sentenced him to a fine of GH¢2,400, and in default, serve a jail term of five years.

The prosecutor, ASP Mary Agbozo, had briefed the court on the facts, indicating that in 1996, both the complainant and the accused person, who were friends, jointly acquired a plot of land at Kokomlemle, a suburb of Accra, from one Madam Vida Ayikaley Vanderpuye, for the construction of stores and offices.

She told the court that the plot was leased out to them for 35 years for a fee of GH¢3,500, adding that a lease document was prepared in the name of both the complainant and the accused as joint lessee.

She said the accused person, who was then living in France, later informed the complainant of his disinterest in the intended project.

'In 1999, the accused person returned from France, went to the landlady, lied to her, and succeeded in receiving a new lease document prepared for him by the landlady's lawyer, mentioning him as the sole lessee of the plot,' the prosecutor added.

According to her, the accused person later filed a civil suit against the complainant at the High Court, and in the course of the trial, tended the second lease document, but it was rejected and the first one accepted as the true document.

ASP Agbozo emphasised that at the end of the trial, the court ruled in favour of the complainant, who however, after the judgment, petitioned the Inspector General of Police for the second lease document to be investigated.

'In the course of the investigation, a duplicated docket was forwarded to the Attorney General's Department for advice.'