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Lawyer For Chinese Illegal Miners Absent In Court

By Solomon Owusu Denver, Colorado, USA
General News Lawyer For Chinese Illegal Miners Absent In Court
AUG 21, 2018 LISTEN

The attorney for the five Chinese illegal miners who were granted police enquiry bail to produce their immigration documents, Lawyer Owusu Ansah, failed to show up in court today for some reasons yet to be known. Meanwhile, the immigration officers investigating the details of the immigrants’ traveling documents were present at the court with some papers believed to be information about the Chinese nationals.

The Bekwai Circuit court judge, His Lordship Justice Frederick Nawura, adjourned the case to Monday September 17, 2018. The adjournment was close to one month,which made people believe that “justice delayed is justice denied” tactics has been displayed in this illegal mining case.

The foreigners were arrested by the forestry commission taskforce in collaboration with the military at Bepotenten in the Amansie Central District, Ashanti Region on Thursday August 2, 2018. The alleged foreign illegal minerswere granted police enquiry bail, pending investigations into the details about theirpassports and working permits. They were engaging in illegal mining activities in the forest and the arrests were caused upon tip off given to the security personnel in the area.

The equipment belonging to the miners were seized by the taskforce and the Chinese were subsequently charged with illegal mining without authorization.The foreigners were unable to produce their immigration documents during their first appearance in court, after the judge requested for them.They were scheduled to reappear before the Bekwai Circuit court lastThursday August 16, 2018.

According to Angel FM’s Bekwai correspondent, Nana Poku, who was at the court, the defendants’ lawyer pleaded to the judge, Justice Frederick Nawura that the foreign nationals wereengineers sent by their company to dismantlegalamsey equipment in the forest. Based on the attorney’s submission, the five Chinese worked with a company that had been contracted by the forestry commission to reclaim the degraded lands in the forestcaused by illegal mining activities. Unfortunately, some of the company’s staff took advantage and operated illegal mining instead of reclaiming the lands. Upon realizing the possible breach of contract, the company’s management sent the five engineers todismantlethe galamsey equipment on site. The name of the contracting company is still not known.

The judge requested for their passports and working permits to justify their engineering qualifications and authorization to work in Ghana as engineers. The foreigners were unable to produce the documents in court and the judge granted them police enquiry bail, adjourned the case to today, Monday August 20, 2018 but referred their passports and working permitsinvestigations to the Ghana Immigration Service.

At the court on Monday, the lawyer for the defendants’ was absent but his replacement attended and pleaded with the judge to adjourn the case to allow more time to gather the requested information. Consequently, His Lordship, Justice Nawura adjourned the case again to Monday September 17, 2018, approximately one month later.

Ghanaians across the world are wondering whether the lawyer will cooperate with the court to ensure that the Chinese men were truly engineers sent to the forest to dismantle galamsey equipment. Some aggrieved Ghanaian citizens, especially the licensed small-scale miners are keenly following this case until the truth prevails in terms of the details of the directors of the company where the illegal mining was conducted alongside the reclamation exercise, names of the staff that engaged in the illegal mining before the said dismantling exercise, the date that the contract was awarded, the responsible person who awarded the reclamation contract and the arrival date of the Chinese engineers who were sent to dismantle the illegal mining equipment.

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