HL Justice Francis Apangano Achibonga JA, sitting as an additional High Court judge has struck out two witness statements filed by the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice in the criminal case of Republic v Hanan Abdul-Wahab Aludiba & Other Suit No. CR/0051/2026.

HL Achibonga struck out the said witness statements upon the objection raised by counsel for the first accused, the learned Godfred Yeboah Dame to the filing of the said witness statements. According to the former Attorney-General, the Republic had already filed witness statements in respect of the same proposed witnesses and same had been adopted for case management conference, which had been done.

According to Mr. Dame, the filing of fresh witness statements for the same persons which had fresh attachments of evidence, without leave of the court, was unknown and offensive to the Practice Directions governing the conduct of criminal proceedings in the High Court.

The former A-G in his usual pointed and forceful advocacy submitted that it could not be determined from the filed statements whether the two witness statements constituted “amended witness statements”, “a substitution of the earlier ones” or “additional” witness statements. He further argued that, Regulation 4 of the Practice Directions, apart from requiring that leave ought to be sought by the prosecution before filing the two witness statements, also mandated that leave may only be granted where the prosecution showed that it sought to bring to the attention of the court new matters which were not within the possession of the prosecution or could not have been known to them at the time of filing the original witness statements.

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Mr. Dame therefore prayed the Court to strike out the two witness statements as having been unlawfully filed. With a look of satisfaction, the experienced criminal litigation lawyer, Augustine Obour, Counsel for the 2nd accused, associated himself with he submissions of Mr. Dame who had the company of the respected Richard Gyambiby, a lecturer of Criminal Procedure at the Ghana School of Law.

A-G queried on leave to file

In his usual firmness, the respected Achibonga JA asked prosecution led by the learned Esi Yankah, Principal State Attorney, to produce their authority for filing the witness statements. Prosecution failed to produce leave granted for the filing of the challenged witness statements. Prosecution however prayed for time to put its house in order.

Convinced that the State had no proper defence against the objection raised, Justice Francis Achibonga upheld the submissions of counsel for the 1st accused, Godfred Dame, and struck out the two witness statements filed by the Republic. This road bump in the prosecution drive of the State adds on to the striking off of a member of its team for failure of authorisation to prosecute. The Court adjourned proceedings to the 5th May, 2026.