Akwasi Osei-Adjei, the former Foreign Minister whose traveler�s passport was confiscated by the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) when he was �invited� for interrogation, will today get his passport back after the Attorney-General made a sudden retreat at court yesterday.
The Court also awarded costs of GH�600 against the Attorney-General�s Department. Osei-Adjei had gone to an Accra High Court, seeking that his seized passport be given back to him after it was taken last May when he was ordered through a phone call to report to the office of the BNI to help in investigating a case in which the Government of Ghana pleaded with the Government of India to wave a ban on the exportation of food products, so as to allow rice to be exported from the Asian country to Ghana.
Osei-Adjei described the seizure of his passport as an illegality and an abuse of his human rights and dragged to court, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, as well as the Director of the BNI.
Though the High Court ordered that Osei-Adjei�s passport be returned to him, the Attorney-General�s Department sought a stay of execution at an Appeals Court to restrict the earlier order for the release of the passport.
In a dramatic twist of events, the Deputy Attorney-General, Ebo Barton-Odro, yesterday told the Appeals Court that he was withdrawing the stay of execution, so Osei-Adjei can have back his passport. Barton-Odro told the Appeals Court that the Attorney-General�s Department was withdrawing the stay of execution because the application had been overtaken by events that concern the investigation, and moreover the release of the passport would no more be a problem to the State.
Counsel for Osei-Adjei, Godfred Dame, initially raised an objection and explained that his client�s time had been wasted. He however gave in later and concerted to the withdrawal.
Source: d-G
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