Amoateng's Passport Tendered

Eric Amoateng
The passport used by the former Member of Parliament (MP) for Nkoranza North, Eric Amoateng, to travel to Ghana from the United States – after serving over seven-year jail term in that country – was yesterday tendered in court by Ibrahim Issaka Lan-Gani, the Assistant Commissioner of Immigration at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), who was on duty when Amoateng arrived.

The passport was tendered by Lan-Gani  in a court presided over by Mrs. Ellen Vivian Amoah, where Amoateng is on trial for alleged fraudulent acquisition of passport.

The Assistant Immigration Commissioner was continuing his evidence led by the prosecutor, DSP Aidan Dery.

When asked what observations he made about the passport, the witness said when he took the passport from the former MP, he first counted its pages and realized that the pages were intact - 32 pages.

In addition, Mr. Lan-Gani said a close look at the document indicated that the photograph was substituted and the third digit and readable zone was not correct.

Furthermore, he said the tank tracking of the passport had double-tracked instead of single, indicating that someone had worked on the picture.

The witness said he subsequently wrote a report to the Director of Immigration and said he had a copy of it at the office but if the court wanted the original they could apply to the director for it.

DSP Dery consequently prayed the court to adjourn the matter for him to tender the said report, and the case was adjourned until November 3, 2014.

The witness had stated in his evidence in-chief that Amoateng looked surprised when he (witness) told him that the passport he used in traveling to Ghana was a forged one.

The witness explained that Amoateng told him that he had written to the Ghana Embassy in the United States of America on the issue of a travel document, but did not receive any response.

According to the witness, on August 7, 2014 he was on duty at KIA at the arrival hall when he was given notice by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) that a deportee would arrive with Delta Airlines from the USA.

He said when all passengers disembarked he spotted the accused person and asked him to go with him to his office where Amoateng gave him his passport and immediately he saw the data page, he knew it had been forged so he immediately informed the MP about it.

In addition, he said Amoateng told him that after his prison term he wrote to the Ghana Ambassador in the USA about a passport but said he did not receive any response.

Amoateng, a teacher and farmer, had spent over seven years in the United States of America (USA) prison in connection with heroin-related offences.

The passport Amoateng used in flying back to Ghana was originally issued to a lady called Barbara Inkoom with No. H2347080.

It was issued in Accra on February 23, 2009, during which time the suspect was still in prison.

The accuse had earlier been granted bail in the sum of GH¢200,000 with three sureties, one to be justified.

By Fidelia Achama