Lance Corporal Kwame Adu Asabre, an interim police officer, admitted in court on Monday his negligence that led to the escape of a convicted prisoner but denied helping him escape.
He told an Accra district court that he may have been dozing when he sent the convict into a taxi but did not intentionally help him escape.
This happened during cross-examination by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sylvester Asare.
Mr Asabre is on trial over the escape of Harold Davies Johnson, who has been sentenced to three years in prison for fraud.
The accused, who was stationed at CID headquarters in Accra, was transporting the convict to Nsawam Prisons when the escape took place.
Under cross-examination, he also admitted that he had prepared the book on the police removal of prisoners, indicating that he had sent the convict to prisons, but refused to sign the document, saying he was under the supervision his superiors.
DSP Asare advised the defendant that the convict was handed over to him (the defendant) on September 10, 2019, but he never returned him just to fill the deportation book to deceive the authorities.
Prosecutors said that when Johnson was convicted, the defendant wheeled him between police cells and his home before leaving the coast of Ghana, which the defendant denied.
According to DSP Asare, Johnson was in police custody from May 8 to September 30, 2019, after which time Johnson fled the hired taxi because there was no court hearing to attend.
“I told you that you compromised your position as investigator to release a convict to leave the shores of Ghana,” the prosecutor explained, but the defendant said that was never true.
The defendant said: “I admit negligence, but I did not contribute to his escape.”
The prosecutor’s office also informed the accused that he (the accused) handed over his (the convict’s) passport to allow the convict to escape. However, the defendant said he was not the one as he was not the one who arrested the convict and did not have his belongings, including his passport.
Prosecutors had previously told the court, headed by Ms. Patricia Amponsah, that in 2019 an investigation by Dr.
Following the investigation, the suspect was directed to charge Johnson with fraud under false pretenses.
The court heard that Johnson was subsequently charged in Accra Circuit Court “2”, presided over by Madam Naa Adjetey Quaison, where Johnson pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to three years in prison on his own guilty plea.
Prosecutors said the convict Johnson was handed over to the accused person, the clerk, to send him to Nsawam Prison, but surprisingly, the accused person did not send the convict to the jail, instead he took the convict to his home in Sapeiman, a suburb of Accra and lived with him for some time.
Further investigation revealed that after the convict promised to help the accused travel abroad and in return the defendant released the convict’s British passport, which was in his care, to the convict in order to travel to the United Kingdom.
In order to cover up the crime, the accused person forged the police removal book to indicate that the convict had been sent and received by Nsawam prison authorities.
When the accused was arrested, he admitted the crime but pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to him in court.
He has his next appearance on October 28, 2022.
