According to Thaddeus Sory, the lead attorney for Kwesi Nyantakyi, the former president of the Ghana Football Association, his team is merely making sure that the law is followed in his client’s ongoing criminal trial.
In order to ensure that due process is followed, the private attorney decided to ask the Supreme Court to overturn a High Court verdict granting investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas the opportunity to testify against his client while keeping his identity secret.
“We are not bent; that is a constitutional provision. If you check, it says every trial should be in public. It is statutory; it is a constitutional right to have your trial in public. So if you want to go contrary to that, it should be a compelling reason. So it is not as wanting somebody or not wanting somebody to testify on camera.
“Basically, that is what it is (following due process), so that is what the constitution says that every proceeding should be in public and that if you want to testify or have a proceeding in camera, there are laid down processes and procedures that you go through. So if he comes today and says that he wants to testify in camera, yes, you should come properly; bring an application, support it with an affidavit,” he stated.
On Tuesday, November 8, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned a decision by the High Court that had allowed the journalist to testify in the Republic v. Kwesi Nyantakyi & Another case while wearing a mask.
The renowned investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ attorneys, Cromwell Gray LLP, have meanwhile urged the public to disregard what they describe as false media reports that the Ghanaian Supreme Court, presided over by Baffoe-Bonnie, JSC, had ordered the journalist to testify in public without a mask.
Following a Tiger Eye PI exposé, Mr. Nyantakyi and Abubakar Alhassan, a former chairman of the Northern Regional Football Association (RFA), were charged with conspiring to commit crime in a football controversy.
Additional charges against Mr. Nyantakyi include corruption by a public official and agent fraud.
However, they have refuted the allegations and have each been granted bail in the amount of Gh1 million with three sureties, one of whom must provide justification.
After Ahmed Suale, the primary witness and a witness for the prosecution was killed on January 19, 2019, Anas was chosen to testify against the defendants.