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17.07.2009 General News

Court issues arrest warrant against ex-Magistrate

17.07.2009 LISTEN
By Ivy Benson - Ghanaian Chronicle

AN Accra Circuit court has issued an arrest warrant against Ms. Ana Jane Ghartey, the embattled Magistrate of the juvenile court in Accra, for her failure to appear before court yesterday, to answer allegations of fraud leveled against her by a Ghanaian Professor based in the United States of America.

The accused person, who Chronicle learnt from deep throat sources had been relieved of her post after suffering interdiction for several months, is standing trial with two other accused persons.

The court, presided over by Mr. Idrissu, therefore, adjourned sitting to July 23, 2009.

The complainant, Prof. Joseph K. Adjaye of the Department of Africana Studies, University of Pittsburgh, had accused Ms. Ghartey of perpetrating fraud against him, running into GH¢30,000 in the purchase of some lands at Adjiringano, a suburb of Accra, with the help of her accomplice, one Sammuel Adu, an estate agent.

The complainant, who indicated that the fraud was carried out by Ms. Ghartey in the later part of 2006 when she was then a lawyer at the Ghana Prisons Service, further pointed out that the accused person sold him plot of lands with land documentation, which turned out to be fake.

Additionally, the complainant, who had in a letter dated August 12, 2008, alerted the Director General of Police and copied the Director of Property Fraud Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Police Service, the General Legal Council (GLC) and the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), noted that the fake documentation of the land sold to him bearing his name, was further sold fraudulently to unsuspecting buyers.

Ms. Ghartey is also alleged to have committed similar crime on the brother of the complainant, Dr. Robert Adjaye, who had also petitioned the Director General of the Prison Service, the Chief Justice, GLC, GBA, the Director of CID as well as the Minister of Justice for redress.

Police prosecutors told the court that the accused person, who was alleged to have been representing the owner of the land, sold plots of land in Adjiringano to Prof. Adjaye over a period from December 2006 to August 2007, which were completely paid for including document preparation and consent letter for the sale of the land by the Teshie Chiefs as well as other land documentation.

The documents prepared by the accused person on several demands by the complainant turned out as fake, with investigations conducted at the Lands Commission showing the deed assignors were wrong and forged.

Ms. Ghartey, having promised the complainant to prepare proper documentation for the two plots of land purchased, advised Prof. Adjaye to commence putting up a structure on one of the lands only to be demolished by one, Mr. Agbenator, who claimed to be the legitimate owner of the land.

The accused person, according to the complainant failed to act, when she was informed about developments on the land as demands for refund yielded little results, even though Ms. Ghartey had under an agreement promised to repay the amount involved in March 2008.

The court was further told that Ms. Ghartey persuaded Prof. Adjaye to give her “power of Attorney”, while the latter was away in the U.S.A and subsequently attempted to use the fake indenture bearing the complainant's name to sell the same land to one Mr. Awuku, who identified the fraud and put an end to the purchase.

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