Charles Bissue’s attorney claims that his client, the former Secretary of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining, will not comply with a court order for his arrest.
Not because his client is on the run, but because the arrest warrant was not properly secured, the lawyer, Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, told Joy FM. He claimed that the court order for his client’s arrest would not have been issued if the court had been aware of all the material, including charges of human rights violation against Mr. Bissue by the Special Prosecutor.
“The arrest warrant would have been secured ex parte, which is without notice to Charles Bissue. So the court would have acted based solely on the information the Special Prosecutor gave it. The court made that order without being fed with the global evidence in this matter and granted the arrest order without properly exercising its discretion, not through its fault,” as stated by Mr. Awuah.
According to him, “if the court was privy to certain facts, including but not limited to pending suits and motions for interlocutory injunctions, it would not have granted or made an order for that arrest.”
Mr. Awuah said it seems strange that the Special Prosecutor is in a rush while there are currently about three lawsuits against him.
“Why can’t he allow the processes to run their course? Is it because he has scores to settle? There is another suit in our human rights court by Charles Bissue, in which he complains of a warrant and breach of his fundamental human rights. When the Special Prosecutor went to secure that warrant, I am sure he didn’t disclose all these facts.” he said.
This follows after the Special Prosecutor’s Office successfully obtaining a court order for the arrest of the former Secretary of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM). The order was issued after investigations into alleged instances of illegal mining-related corruption and corruption-related crimes.
This ruling was obtained after Mr. Bissue ignored the Special Prosecutor’s invitation last month. On May 3, the OSP informed Mr. Bissue in writing that his participation in an investigation of the IMCIM’s operations was requested for May 22.
The attorneys for Mr. Bissue subsequently wrote to the OSP, demanding a copy of the petition upon which this invitation is based and requesting that the meeting in question be moved to May 25 due to “a domestic emergency.”
Mr. Awuah, however, said that the Special Prosecutor not only rejected the May 25 date but also refused to provide them with copies of the petitions or papers that served as the basis for the invitation and subsequent demand for arrest.
Meanwhile, Charles Bissue has petitioned the High Court to stop an investigation into his possible involvement in public official corruption and corruption-related crimes by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
