Airbus scandal: I built a good case to get Interpol Red Notice – Amidu

Contrary to claims that the issuance of an Interpol Red Notice for the arrest and trial of brother of former president John Dramani Mahama was politically engineered to smear the name of the former leader, Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu has brought clarity to his request to the International Police.

The Special Prosecutor said his office uncovered substantive evidence into the controversial Airbus scandal which was enough for Interpol to grant the request for a Red Notice for the extradition of Mr Adam Mahama otherwise known as Samuel Adam Foster and three others.

“The investigation into the Airbus SE bribery case in Ghana has been so thorough that it has even unearthed the suspected commission of other related crimes of impersonation as graduates of the University of Ghana, a civil servant, and forgeries in the application for the acquisition of a Ghanaian passport connect to this bribery case”.

With specific regards to allegations of political witch-hunting from the camps of the opposition NDC, Mr Amidu established his unwillingness to wade into a politically branded discourse which he believes are being instigated by young ‘unethical lawyers.’

He wrote, “The SP is well known in this country and amongst the community of ethical lawyers and the senior judiciary as a person who had practised the law ethically for upwards of forty years. Some of the unethical lawyers who were assaulting the person and character of the SP on the airwaves are lawyers who are in their twenties and early thirties: they have not yet cut their teeth at the Ghana Bar. The SP refused to be drawn into the affray of turning law into politics as is the forte of those unethical and inexperienced lawyers with no or very limited distinguished courtroom practice vindicating their standing as lawyers in the Ghana Law Reports,” he added.

According to the Interpol Red Notice, the four wanted persons played roles in accepting and paying €3,909,756 as bribe, on behalf of AIRBUS SE, to some key Ghanaian public officials from 2009 to 2015.

On the other hand, however, the CID issued a statement after the news broke to attribute the request of the Interpol Red Notice for the arrest of the four individuals to the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

But the Special Prosecutor in his statement dated July 23, 2020, described the CID’s statement as “unusual, extraordinary, needless and gratuitous.”

“On 17th July 200, it came to the notice of the SP that the Police/CID had unusually gone out of its way to issue a news release to the media dated 16th July 2019 on the publication of Interpol Red Notice” informing the public that the Red Notice was issued at the behest of this Office. This office as an independent and active agency took the view that the publication made on its behalf was unusual, extraordinary, needless and gratuitous as every Interpol red notice states its content the law enforcement agency at whose behest it is issued”, he added.

Meanwhile, brother of the former president, Adam Mahama is likely to face up to 25 years in prison for “accepting a bribe to influence a public officer” and also “acting in collaboration with a public officer for the public officer’s private profit”.

Source: www.ghanaweb.com