­Bail After 10 Years In Jail

Luck has finally glowed on Kwadwo Enu, the 28-year-old man who has spent the last 10 years on remand in prison without trial as the Accra Fast Track High Court has admitted him to a self-recognisance bail.

Enu is facing one count of robbery. He was arrested among a group of people around his Laterbiokoshie residence during a police swoop in 1999 when he set out one evening to buy food.

Since then, the accused, who was then 17, had been abandoned to his fate at the Nsawam Medium Prison until his appearance in court on July 5, this year, when he was granted bail in the sum of GH¢10,000 with two sureties and a justification following an application by Captain Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey (retd).

The review of the bail condition was as a result of the fact that the suspect had been unable to fulfil the bail condition, while no State Attorney had been assigned to his case.

However, he is to deposit two passport-sized pictures and also report to the Weija police once a week.

He will reappear on September 22, 2010.

Following the hopeless situation that the suspect finds himself, Mr Justice Quist, the trial judge, asked the Attorney-General's Office to consider discontinuing with the matter.

'This is a proper case to enter a nolle prosequi (an application by the A-G to discontinue with the matter) because we have spent more than 10 years on it,' he said.

A nolle prosequi can be entered at any stage of the trial before judgement, after which the accused should be immediately discharged and if he is in custody, be released forthwith.

The relatives of the accused had been in and out of the Accra High Court more than necessary just because the prosecution had not started the case.

A relative, Eric Kwamina Sam, who stood as the surety, claimed the police had refused to accept an unregistered indenture on a three-storey property at Abossey Okai in Accra, even though they had gone to inspect the property.

At the court’s last sitting on July 23, this year, Mr Justice Quist had urged the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to expedite action for the case to be heard.

“Even though robbery is one of the cases for which bail is not allowed, I have been compelled to grant bail in this case because it is one of the longest-standing cases in the court,” he declared.