A Kumasi High Court, presided over by Justice R. C. Azumah, has granted bail in the sum of GH¢96,000 with three sureties each to three businessmen in a case of stealing and unlawful entry.
J.E.K. Arku of Kaysons Supermarket, who is a Ghanaian, Raajesh Nair of Menkish Supermarket and Rajesh Jethani of Bon Arrive, both Indians, deal in carpets.
The bail application followed an appeal by their counsel, Mr Stephen Oppong, who told the court that his clients would not jump bail because they were not only men of substance but had also fully co-operated with the police since August last year when the case was reported to them.
Earlier, all the three suspects pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against them in court. The case was adjourned to February 6, 2009.
In applying for bail, Mr Oppong also told the court that his clients had not been notified by the police that they would appear before the court.
Again, they were not formally charged for committing any offence prior to the issue of a bench warrant.
"I will prove to the court in subsequent hearings that my clients did not commit any offence to warrant their arrest," he told the court.
Mr Oppong also told the court that his clients, who represented three different companies, never forced their way into the shop of the complainant to carry the products away but that it was one of them, Arku, who negotiated with the wife of the complainant and came to an agreement that the products should be carried away to defray some debt her husband owed his company.
He said this came to light because the suspects had heard that the complainant, who owed them a substantial amount of money following a quantity of carpets supplied him, had bolted from the country and could not be traced.
Mr Oppong said when one of his clients went to the complainant’s wife to verify the whereabouts of her husband, the wife confirmed that she could not trace him and that confirmed their fears that the complainant did not want to honour his debt obligation.
He said it was based on that confirmation by the complainant’s wife that Arku decided to carry away some of the products to defray part of the debt.
Explaining further, Mr Oppong said before the goods were carried away, all the parties, including the wife of the complainant and her mother, as well as a shop owner who witnessed the incident, took inventory of all the products and signed, indicating that it was a mutual agreement before the goods were carried away.
He said the two Indian businessmen were not present when the goods were carried away and, therefore, they did not commit any offence,
Moments after the court had heard the offences of the suspects and the submission by the State Attorney, Mr Emmanuel Otu Boison, it granted bail to the suspects and adjourned the case.
Prior to that, Mr Boison had told the court that the complainant, Mr Kwame Boamah, who dealt in carpets, had transacted business with the suspects on credit basis for some time.
He said in June, 2008, while the complainant had travelled to the United States of America and left the care of his business to his wife, Diana Yaa Boamah, the suspects went into the shop and ransacked the place, carrying away the products in the store valued at about GH¢96000.00
He said following the ransacking of the shop, the wife of the complainant informed her husband about the events at home and that forced the complainant to return to Ghana and later went to Arku to demand why they entered his shop to ransack it while he was away.
Mr Boison said Arku told him that he (complainant) might not pay the money owed Kaysons if they returned the carpets, so the complainant should sign an undertaking to prove his indebtedness to the company, which he did.
According to the State Attorney, the companies refused to return the products as agreed with the complainant after he had signed the undertaking, so he reported the case to the police to enable him to retrieve the carpets from the suspects.
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