Aikins “hates’ Capt. Tsikata

Dr. Obed Asamoah, counsel for Captain (Rtd) Kojo Tsikata says the claims by former Attorney General Justice G. E. K. Aikins before the National Reconciliation Commission are all tales, accusing him of harboring ill-feelings against his client.

Justice Aikins was at the NRC on Monday and told the commission that a number of top members of the PNDC were present at a meeting on the 2nd of July 1982 when Joachim Amartey Kwei informed them about the murder of the three judges and a retired military officer.

Incidentally this account by the former Attorney General contradicts earlier version of the same story told the NRC by Cpl. James Adabuga. Adabuga claimed that he was in the office of the PNDC Chairman when Amartey Kwei came to inform Jerry Rawlings and Captain Tsikata that the judges had been killed. According to Adabuga, Rawlings and Tsikata upon hearing the news popped champagne in obvious celebration.

Dr. Asamoah himself a former Attorney General and a one time Foreign Minister explained to Justice Aikins that the said meeting could only have been a figment of his own imagination since neither Capt. Tsikata nor Tsatsu Tsikata (who was not in Accra on the said date) took part in any such meeting with him.

Capt. Tsikata also took his turn to debunk all the claims of the former Judge insisting that he was not in any such meeting “…neither that of Justice Aikins, nor those according to Adabuga or Chris Archer.”

Dr. Asamoah punched lots of holes in Justice Aikins' submission during cross examination that he was under intense pressure from Capt. Tsikata and others to discontinue the proceedings. Dr. Asamoah reminded him that under law that setting up the SIB, no individual including the Attorney General himself can discontinue the investigations and this fact was not lost to Capt. Tsikata and other functionaries of the PNDC.

It also emerged from the cross-examination by Dr. Asamoah that Justice Aikins became very peeved and embittered against Capt. Tsikata and the PNDC. Counsel suggested that Justice Aikins' bitterness informed his refusal to swear an affidavit to help Capt. Tsikata's lawsuit in London in 1997.

Dr. Asamoah said Justice Aikins was unhappy with Capt Tsikata for a number of reasons including not being appointed Chief Justice as he had hoped, his entitlements not paid him in due time and delay in sending him abroad for medical treatment.

THE LENS newspaper reports that lots of people who followed the submissions of Justice Aikins could not help but sympathize with him especially when he could not remember for instance that Dr. Obed Asamoah did not have anything to do with the Economic Ministry during the PNDC era.

This has left most independent observers wondering whether the “fantastic” rendition of Justice Aikins were not motivated by a desire to get back at former colleagues that he feels did not treat him well in the past.

Justice Aikins was however emphatic that justice was well served in the execution of Amartey Kwei and the three others. He also re-emphasized that Amedeka would have been executed as well but for the fact that he was freed during the coup attempt by Halidu Gyiwah.