Confusion Over VVIP

Kotoka International Airport (KIA)

There appears to be confusion over the exit point used at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) by the controversial cocaine dealer, Nayele Ametefeh, aka Ruby Adu-Gyamfi, and the two ladies who purportedly accompanied her for their abortive trip to London.

According to the security operatives who are investigating the matter, the two ladies that travelled together with Ruby Adu-Gyamfi who was arrested at the London Heathrow Airport with 12.5kg cocaine worth $5 million—Sadalia Nuhu and Nana Akua Amponsah—had allegedly confirmed that they went through the VIP section of the KIA.

This is contrary to the charge sheet prepared by the prosecutor in the trial of the three Foreign Affairs officers at an Accra Circuit Court that the supposed cocaine bandits used the VVIP lounge.

Ruby would make a first appearance in court today at 2:00 pm at the Isleworth Crown Court in the UK.

But even before the case comes up for hearing in the UK, the investigator at the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) handling the other aspect of the arrest in Ghana, has said the two ladies with whom Ruby travelled to the UK had admitted being escorted by two officials at the airport—Theophilus Kissi and Ahmed Abubakar—who facilitated their (Ruby and her alleged accomplices') passage without going through normal checks.

That, he said, was on the instructions of Abiel Ashittey Armah, the Assistant Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who has also been arrested in connection with the case and has been put before court with the two others.

Abiel was the official in-charge of the VVIP section of the KIA.

The court documents suggest that the ladies used the VVIP section of the airport—reserved for the President and top government officials—and not the VIP section as the investigator claimed.

So far, 12 persons have been arrested in connection with this particular cocaine case. They are one Paa Kwasi Acquah, said to be the boyfriend of Sadalia who recently relocated to Ghana from the United States; Mustapha Kilba, a cousin of Akua Amponsah; Faisal Khadar; Abdulla Mustrah; Charbel Nasr; Mariotto Bernard Young and Mouiw Jaafar.

The rest are Theophilus Kissi who is attached to the VVIP lounge and Ahmed Abubakar who had earlier been presented as a civil servant; but it has now emerged that he is a 'connection-man' ( Goro boy ) at the airport.

At a media interaction with journalists, an officer of the BNI therefore sought to deny the claim that the three ladies used the VVIP section of the airport on their way to the UK.

Instead, he said the suspects used the VIP section even though they were prevented from giving their own account.

Upon arrival at the airport yesterday the BNI official asked the suspects, especially the ladies, to take him through the process they went through before embarking on their journey abroad.

Upon seeing the journalists the suspects, especially the two ladies, became apprehensive that they were going to be captured on the cameras.

But upon assurance they agreed to cooperate on condition that their images would not be captured on either the video or still cameras.

Another drama unfolded when the BNI official took the ladies to the exit of the VIP section of the airport known as the staff gate. That was when one of the ladies protested that that was not the place they used while embarking on the journey to London.

But an airport staff immediately came in and said it was the same place and that the place had changed because there was some renovation works going on there.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu