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27.04.2007 General News

Nyaho- Tamakloe's son convicted of drug peddling

27.04.2007 LISTEN
By Gilbert Boyefio

A Fast Track High Court presided over by Justice Iris May Brown yesterday convicted the second son of Ghana's Ambassador to Serbia Montenegro and former Ghana Football Association Chairman, Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, for narcotic related offences.

The court found Ellis Nyaho Tamakloe and Roger Eklu guilty of all the two charges preferred against them.

However, sentencing has been deferred to May 10, to allow Counsel for Roger Eklu, who was not in court, to mitigate on his behalf.

After the ruling, Ellis Owusu Fordjour, counsel for Tamakloe pleaded with the court to be lenient to his client, because he was young with a fine educational background and had been led into this crime by friends.

Ellis Nyaho Tamakloe and Roger Eklu, courier at DHL office in Accra, were arrested in August last year, and were standing trial on two counts of conspiracy and attempted exportation of narcotic drugs.

Both accused persons have pleaded not guilty to the two counts of conspiracy to export narcotic drugs without license and possession of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and have been remanded into police custody since.

On August 30, 2006 the DHL Operations Manager while inspecting some parcels meant for documentation and airlifting to the United Kingdom at their Office at Kanda, detected that one of them contained some compressed dried leaves suspected to be cannabis, also known as wee.

Since the parcel was in the custody of Eklu, the Operations Manager reported the matter to personnel of the Narcotics Control Board who arrested him.

A search in Eklu"s room revealed a number of waybills, including a copy of the original waybill pasted on that particular parcel, which contained the suspected drugs. When he was interrogated, he mentioned Tamakloe as the one who gave the parcel to him. He was then arrested.

Tamakloe on his part told NACOB that one Harry Campbell gave him the parcel to be sent by courier to the United Kingdom, but he did not know its contents.

He subsequently led the police team to Mr. Campbell's house, but he had gone underground.

Meanwhile, the judgment on the contempt case brought against the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Joe Ghartey by Hodare-Okae, a former Deputy Director of the Immigration Service in charge of Operations, has been postponed due to power outage.

Mr Hodari-Okae was transferred from the immigration service in 2002 to the Free Zone Board, a move he described as "victimisation.”

In May 27, 2005, the same court presided over by Justice Baffoe-Bonney ruled that the government reinstated Mr Hodari-Okae to his position in the public service but to date Government has not complied with the judgment.

But the AG, Joe Ghartey, who represented himself at the last hearing, described the application as totally misplaced and a fraud.

He said the only reason why he has been brought to court is because of Article 88, which speaks of the office and duties of the AG. He said to bring an action against a person, one must prove that the order is made against the person, adding “the plaintiff has not been able to prove that an order was brought against the AG or whether the AG has failed to act.”

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