Ex-NACOB Boss, Graphic reporter convicted for contempt

Accra March 21, GNA - Mr Akrasi Sarpong, a former Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), and a reporter of the Daily Graphic were on Tuesday convicted for contempt by an Accra High Court.

The NACOB boss was ordered by the Court to sign a bond to be of good behaviour or in default go to jail for two months.

The order came after the court presided over by Mr. Justice Charles Edward Ekow Baiden had found Mr. Sarpong guilty of contempt.

Mr. Sarpong is said to have registered his displeasure over the grant of bail to Chief Sunny Ikechukwu Benjy Eke, a 53- year-old businessman, and his accomplice, James Eleke Chukwu, a 47year old second-hand clothes dealer based in Accra for allegedly smuggling cocaine into the country.

A reporter of the Daily Graphic who also published the interview of Mr. Sarpong, after the grant of the bail was fined GH¢5,000.00 by the court after she was also found guilty of contempt.

Eke was picked up by NACOB and remanded in 2013 for attempting to smuggle 281,604 grammes of liquid cocaine valued at $12.5 million into the country.

The said drugs were alleged to have been concealed in a 40-footer container filled with 1,946 boxes of shampoo imported from Bolivia in South America.

However Mr. Sarpong was not enthused with the bail and described the terms of the bail as unfortunate because Eke was known to have jumped bail in Brazil.

Eke's team of lawyers proceeded to the court with a contempt application against the NACOB boss and the publication.

The court in its ruling held that Mr. Sarpong's comments were meant to derogate the authority of the court that granted bail to the suspects.

GNA