Presidential staffer Charles Bissue and five police officers accused by Anas Aremeyaw Anas of taking bribes to facilitate a company to circumvent laid down processes to be given clearance for mining operations have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
“At the conclusion of investigations, based on the available evidence, none of the suspects was found to be culpable for any offence,” the leaked Police CID report sighted by 3news.com stated.
“None of the suspects in the case including suspect Charles Bissue was found to have circumvented the laid down procedure of the inter-ministerial committee on illegal mining in favour of ORR Resources Enterprise,” it added.
Three of the officers involved- GCpl Nicholas Darkwa a.k.a School boy, GCpl Baffour Awuah, Cpl Samson Bimpong- were personnel from the VIP Protection Unit attached to the Inter Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining.
These personnel, the report explained, “have no authority to deploy any member of the services to provide security to any mining company. They are also not privy to the movement of the taskforce to enable them give a tip off to ORR Resource Enterprise”.
For inspectors Kennedy Frimpong and Mathew Annor of the VIP Protection Unit, the report said they are “not connected to the IMCIM as the documentary portrays” hence “could not influence any decision of the IMCIM”.
Lack of evidence?
The report suggested the suspects were exonerated due to lack of evidence from Anas whose Tiger Eye PI investigative documentary showed the suspects taking bribes in different forms to get the mining firm, ORR Resource Enterprise, to operate at a time there was a ban.
Anas was said to have declined to avail himself for police CID investigations into the case that caused Mr Bissue to step down as secretary to the IMCIM in March this year.
He also, allegedly, refused to provide unedited tapes or raw files to aid in the investigations.
“Anas Aremeyaw Anas failed to avail himself to assist in investigations and also provide a copy of the unedited version of the documentary. He said he has already filed a petition with the office of the Special Prosecutor,” the report claimed.
Again, the report claimed Yaw Ben who is a key witness in the case could not be traced to “substantiate the claims of bribery against the respective suspects”.
“Strenuous efforts were made to contact him on his known telephone number bit to no avail”.
In view of that, “all suspects denied the allegation of bribery,” the report stated.
The Police said it was thus forced to rely only on the documentary which was aired on various television channels and concluded that the said “documentary is not a true reflection of what transpired between suspects and Yaw Ben of ORR Resources Enterprise”.
The report said one Obed Osei Boakye, a small-scale miner who was also captured in the Anas documentary taking bribe, “is not connected to IMCIM” as portrayed in the documentary.
“He has no way of influencing any decisions of the IMCIM,” the report concluded.
Meanwhile, the report said Police investigation further revealed that “no mining activity” had taken place at the site of the ORR Resource Enterprise as portrayed by the documentary.
By 3news.com|Ghana