'Goodies' Back In Court
The Managing Director of Goodies Music Productions, Isaac Abeidu Aidoo, aka Goodies, who is being tried for alleged narcotic offences, appeared in court yesterday after the Accra Circuit Court judge had expressed doubts as to whether he was really in custody.
But the judge, Mr Iddrisu Mahamadu, had his hands tied because the case could not proceed as scheduled following the inability of the Chief State Attorney handling the matter to be in court.
Consequently, the judge adjourned the hearing to September 12, 2008, after a police prosecutor, had told the court that Chief State Attorney who was handling the matter was indisposed and for that reason needed another date.
The judge had fixed the hearing of the case for yesterday after he expressed reservation that on two consecutive occasions when the court sat, Aidoo could not appear because he was sick without any proof whatsoever to the court back then.
Goodies on July 8, 2008, pleaded not guilty to the offences and the court remanded him in prison custody to appear again on August 11, 2008.
However, when the case was called on the adjourned date, the court was informed that Aidoo was sick and, therefore, was not brought to court.
The case was again adjourned to August 25, 2008 and during its sitting, the accused person was not brought to court.
His counsel, Mr Jah Mosiah, informed the court that his client had not been well.
The judge was not pleased and did not understand why for two consecutive occasions that the accused could not attend court, the court had not been furnished with any proof.
The judge said the way things were going he might be compelled to find out whether indeed Goodies was in custody as ordered by the court.
He, therefore, adjourned the case to enable the accused to be brought to court.
Aidoo was initially being tried at the Regional Tribunal on charges of attempted export and possession of narcotic drugs.
According to the prosecution, Aidoo swallowed 80 pellets of cocaine and attempted to smuggle them to the United Kingdom.
At about 10.45 p.m. on April 23, this year, when Aidoo arrived at the Kotoka International Airport to board a Ghana International Airlines flight to London, operatives of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) suspected him of carrying drugs in his stomach.
Aidoo was, therefore, escorted to the 37 Military Hospital for an X-ray, which revealed that he had some foreign materials in his stomach.
He was subsequently arrested and put under surveillance and, in the process, he expelled 80 pellets of a whitish substance suspected to be cocaine.
Aidoo informed the police during interrogation that one Abdul Haid, a musician residing at East Legon, Accra, had given him the drugs to be delivered to one Willie, for a fee of $3,000.
Story by Stephen Sah