A former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Tsatsu Tsikata, has revealed he watched only TV3 Network while at the Nsawam Maximum Prison.
He told TV3’s Alfred Ocansey in an interview on Thursday, June 18, on Hot Issues that: “I watched only TV3 when in prison. TV3 was actually the station I used to watch in prison. In the cells where I was with eleven other people, the TV used to be turned on to that station. And so I paid a lot of attention to TV3.
“It was really that the time that I paid attention to TV3, I don’t watch television a lot but I found the range of programmes very interesting and the news broadcast on TV3 seemed to be really up to date with information so it was good.”
Mr Tsikata was sentenced for willfully causing financial loss to the state following a loan that the GNPC guaranteed for Valley Farms, a private cocoa-growing company.
He was found guilty on three counts of willfully causing financial loss of GH¢230,000 to the state and another count of misapplying public funds. He was convicted on June 18, 2008 by Justice Henrietta Abban.
The legal luminary was granted a presidential pardon by former President John Agyekum Kufuor but he rejected it on the grounds that his trial was politically motivated, and that he did no wrong.
He later appealed the case at the Court of Appeal and was accordingly acquitted and discharged.
The Court of Appeal upheld that he was denied a fair trial when the High Court gave a judgment in spite of an appeal.
Nearly five years after his acquittal and discharge, Mr Tsikata said the case was not one in which an independent judicial decision was given.
“It was a politically driven agenda and [Justice Henrietta Abban] was unfortunately a tool for that political agenda.”
Explaining why he rejected the presidential pardon, he said: “As I wrote in the letter to President Kufuor, my quest was for justice , it was not for his mercy .
“I was not going to allow his pardon to get in the way of my seeking justice.
“There has been a miscarriage of justice, when justice is sought to be done in the name of the president, it leads to a desecration.”
By Laud Ayensu|3news.com|Ghana