Documents sighted by JoyNews has revealed that the Cecilia Dapaah theft case was initially filed at a Juvenile Court.
But despite the list of missing items captured in the documents and the alleged theft of unspecified amount of money, the suspect was only charged with unlawful entry and entering premises for unlawful purposes.
This comes days after the Attorney General in his opinion on the Police docket pointed out that there was no information on an initial arrest of any of the suspects in 2022.
“There is nothing in the docket on the complaint made by Daniel Kuffuor or any member of the household at the Tesano Police Station. Neither is there any information on the arrest of the 1st accused by the Tesano Police nor any investigation conducted at that stage. There is however evidence of an arrest warrant against the 1st accused”, the release signed by Deputy AG Alfred Tuah Yeboah stated.
However, the documents analyzed by JoyNews indicate that not only did the police investigate the matter in 2022 but charges were filed multiple times at the Juvenile Court and Circuit Court.
The documents revealed that the former Sanitation Minister had on 4th October, 2022 warned one of her domestic staff not to enter any room in the house when working there. This staff member on October 6, 2022 managed to enter a room and was caught by Madam Dapaah’s husband, Daniel Kuffuor who had cancelled a trip out of Accra.
He is said to have handed her over to the Tesano Police Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit where he lodged a complaint.
Read more: Here’s the Attorney General’s advice on Cecilia Dapaah’s ‘stolen money’ case
Madam Dapaah who was out of town returned on October 10 to carry out an analysis geared at determining which items had been stolen from her room. She informed the police that her two new Kente cloth, uncountable number of women cloth, unspecified amount of money and jewelries were missing.
The Police then took a statement from the juvenile after which charges were filed.
On 26th October, 2022, however, she was taken to the Circuit court after bone age determination placed her estimated age between 18 and 21. She was remanded and asked to appear in court on November 16, 2022.
But on November 16, the Circuit Court was handed her Ghana Card by her lawyers showing that she was 17 years. This caused the court to discharge her, resulting in a re-arrest and fresh charges being filed at the Juvenile Court.
There was no mention of any missing 1 million dollars, suits and other cedi amounts as stated in court documents filed against the same suspect and four others in July 2023 about the same theft that took place in October 2022.
Equally curious is why the police did not press the charge of stealing but limited their probe to unlawful entry and being on a premises for unlawful purposes.
Also read: We requested dockets due to amounts and complainant involved – Deputy A-G
Additionally confusing is why this case was not included in the documents handed over to the Attorney General.
Answering questions to this effect, Deputy AG Alfred Tuah Yeboah told JoyNews' Emefa Apawu that, “The docket that was submitted to us had nothing about a case pending in any juvenile court. The only hint that we had was about the report at the Tesano Police Station. And so in terms of any prosecution going on at the Juvenile or Circuit Court (previously) we are not aware."
He added that his office will be demanding answers from the police.
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