An Accra High Court has rejected the tendering in of an email dated April 23 2018 as evidence by defence team in the ongoing trial involving Adu-Boahene and his wife.
During cross-examination, Samuel Atta-Akyea, counsel for the accused persons, questioned Mildred Donkor, a prosecution witness, on financial transactions involving accounts linked to BNC Communications Bureau Limited and Adu-Boahene.
Counsel referred the witness to her earlier testimony, in which she confirmed that GH¢7,250,000 had been transferred from the BNC Communications Bureau Limited account at UMB Bank to an account belonging to Adu-Boahene.
The witness agreed with the assertion.
The defence suggested that the GH¢7.2 million was later transferred from the accused person’s account into the Director BNC account at Fidelity Bank.
Madam Donkor disagreed with counsel's description and corrected him, referring specifically to the account number involved in the transaction.
Asked whether this was the only occasion on which money had moved from Adu-Boahene’s account into the Director of BNC's account, the witness said the accused maintained a very good relationship with the bank.
She explained that most transactions were initiated directly through the bank, after which the bank’s Director would contact her to provide official correspondence for the transactions to proceed.
Mr Atta-Akyea suggested that instructions from Adu-Boahene regarding accounts handled by the witness were mostly communicated through emails copied to her.
The witness responded that it was “not always,” although she acknowledged that she was sometimes copied in such emails.
The witness was subsequently shown an email dated April 23, 2018, which she identified as one from Adu-Boahene, copied to her.
The prosecution, however, objected to the document's tendering and argued that the email fell outside the period covered by the charges before the court and was therefore irrelevant to the case.
According to the prosecution, the alleged offences before the court related to events between February and March 2020, making the 2018 email inadmissible.
The prosecution, however, maintained that the document predated the alleged offences by two years and had no direct relevance to the matters before the court
Mr Atta-Akyea argued that the document was relevant because it established a historical pattern of financial transactions between the accounts involved.
He contended that the email demonstrated that transfers from Adu-Boahene’s account to the accounts in question had occurred as part of normal financial procedures and were not criminal in nature.
He submitted that there was no prescribed format dictating how accused persons should conduct their defence and maintained that the document supported the defence’s argument regarding the legitimacy of the transactions.
The court subsequently upheld the prosecution’s objection and ruled that the April 2018 email could not be admitted into evidence.
GNA