The Court of Appeal has acquitted and discharged a businessman who wrongfully spent 19 years in jail for a crime prosecutors failed to prove he committed.
The court unanimously ruled that no evidence connected him to the crime and that the trial judge completely misapprehended the evidence before her including saying the accused had pleaded guilty to the crime when her own records showed the accused had pleaded not guilty resulting in a full trial.
Businessman Yaw Appiah faced trial at the High Court together with five others for a robbery that took place in 2006 at Teshie Nungua. One Richard Kwakye and his wife Theresa Kwakye and their children were returning home after seeing off a relative at the Airport when the robbery occurred. The robbers, armed with machete and other implements managed to steal their mobile phones and currencies in cedi and dollar denominations.
Prosecutors say they called the numbers of some of the phones the robbers took away and the responses received helped them locate Yaw Appiah and others at various locations in Accra. The other convicts mentioned Yaw Appiah as one of the individuals who participated in the robbery.
The High Court sentenced him to a 45 year jail term after ruling that there was strong circumstantial evidence linking him to the robbery. His sentence commenced in June 2011.
His lawyers recently sought leave of the Court of Appeal to challenge the ruling since the time for appeal had long elapsed. This request was granted by the court. The lawyers told the court that none of the witnesses identified Yaw Appiah as one of the persons involved in the robbery.
They also pointed out that the High Court stated that the businessman had pleaded guilty to the offence even though the court’s records clearly showed a not guilty plea resulting in a full trial.
State prosecutors admitted that Yaw Appiah may not have taken part in the robbery. They also admitted that the judge’s claim that he had pleaded guilty was in error and an oversight. They also agreed that the trial judge wrongly claimed that Yaw Appiah had been identified by one of the victims of the robbery. They concluded that the evidence relied upon was weak and did not connect the accused person to the crime.
The Court of Appeal after analysing the evidence on record ruled that Yaw Appiah had not been identified by any of the robbery victims. On the phone calls and accusations by one of the convicts, the Court said Yaw Appiah had clearly denied any involvement when questioned by investigators.
The court said the confession by an accused cannot be used to bind a co-accused as the confessor may simply be trying to divert attention from his own criminal conduct.
“Anything at all said by any of the co-accused persons against appellant as long as appellant did not admit of the truth of that statement was clearly not binding on the appellant and no reasonable inference could have been made. The evidence on record had not met the threshold of reasonable doubt to have merited conviction of the appellant” , the court stated.
On the ruling of the High Court Judge, the court stated as follows;
“The trial judge completely misapprehended the evidence that was led by the prosecution. And that if attention had been paid to the evidence led by appellant, he would not have been called upon to open his defence…”
The court noted that the fact that Yaw Appiah had been in custody since 2006 for a crime in which no evidence connected him to, was a tragedy. It thus set aside the conviction and sentence.
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The post Court frees man after 19 years in prison for wrongful conviction first appeared on 3News.
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