Supreme Court faults investigator over bias in $270,000 gold fraud case

The Supreme Court has criticised the conduct of a police investigator in a $270,000 gold export fraud case, holding that his relationship with the foreign complainant created a real likelihood of bias.

The court said Detective Chief Inspector George Kingsley Adu, who later handled the investigation, appeared to have become unusually close to the complainant, Roberto Maria Di Lorenzo.

According to the record, the investigator admitted that he saw the complainant off at the airport when he left Ghana in December.

He was also said to have remarked that “every potential caller is an ally.”

A five-member panel of the Supreme Court, presided over by Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, dismissed the Republic’s appeal against the acquittal of Kwame Amponsah and Christopher Obareke.

The two had been charged with conspiracy to defraud, defrauding by false pretence and money laundering.

Justice Kweku Tawiah Ackaah-Boafo delivered the lead opinion.

Other members of the panel were Justices Ernest Gaewu, Henry Kwofie and Hafisata Amaleboba.

The Supreme Court held that the investigator’s posture raised serious concerns about the objectivity of the prosecution’s case.

Justice Ackaah-Boafo noted that while Detective Chief Inspector Adu showed closeness to the complainant, he treated the original investigator, Chief Inspector Adaba, with suspicion.

During cross-examination, the officer had accused Chief Inspector Adaba of running errands for the accused persons and giving testimony that was “full of inaccuracies and untruth.”

The court said the hostility appeared to have been triggered by the fact that the original investigator had reached a different conclusion in the case.

According to the Supreme Court, that contrast between friendliness toward the complainant and hostility toward a fellow police officer undermined the appearance of fairness in the investigation.

The court used the case to restate the duty of prosecutors in criminal trials.

It said prosecutors are not expected to pursue convictions at all cost, but must act as ministers of justice whose responsibility is to assist the court in finding the truth.

He added that the duty is controlled by an obligation to act fairly and place before the court all material evidence, whether it supports or weakens the prosecution’s case.

The case arose from a 2015 transaction in which Di Lorenzo alleged that he was defrauded of more than $270,000 after being promised 200 kilogrammes of gold.

Only two kilogrammes were allegedly delivered.

Amponsah and Obareke were tried together with five others who remain at large.

In 2019, the High Court convicted the two men and sentenced them to 24 months’ imprisonment with hard labour, in addition to fines.

The Court of Appeal later quashed the convictions in 2021, by which time the two had already served their sentences.

The Republic then appealed to the Supreme Court.

In dismissing the appeal, the Supreme Court held that the complainant’s absence from the trial was a major weakness in the prosecution’s case.

The court said the prosecution relied on hearsay evidence from an interpreter without properly establishing that the complainant was genuinely unavailable to testify.

It also found that the evidence linking the two accused persons to an earlier agreement to defraud the complainant was largely circumstantial.

The court said the evidence left open the reasonable possibility that the real culprits were among the other accused persons who remain at large.

Although the Supreme Court disagreed with the Court of Appeal’s view that the absence of the original investigator alone was fatal to the prosecution’s case, it held that the error did not affect the final outcome.

The appeal was therefore dismissed, and the acquittal of Amponsah and Obareke was affirmed.