Ahmed Suale murder: No evidence to support charge against suspect – Lawyer


 

The lawyer representing the suspect in the Ahmed Suale murder case, Kofi Essel has said that there is no evidence to support the charges against his client.

Thirty-five-year-old businessman Daniel Koranteng has been remanded in custody by the Madina District Court after being provisionally charged with murder.

Speaking on The Pulse on Wednesday, March 19, the lawyer criticised the police for what he described as an attempt to curtail his client’s freedom without proper grounds.

“The matter has been going on for six years if you think if have something on the suspect, I believe regarding the way they came to court, if they had the fact right, the circumstances surrounding all the fact they put around that my client run was on the run.

"Those are not the proper facts, he traveled. For someone to travel and come back to Ghana for a murder case that you have been on for six years and he has just traveled with a clear conscience and he come back to Ghana and you just put facts together and say that he has run out of the jurisdiction and came back and all that are not proper facts, they are not true," he said.

Expressing concern over how the case is being handled, he condemned what he called a misuse of police authority.

“If you come to court to say you will proffer proper charges, then why was my client arrested in the first place? The police are using brute force to curtail the freedom of a Ghanaian citizen. We just hope the court will not support such lawlessness. If there is no evidence, then let the person go. There is a presumption of innocence, not a presumption of guilt,” he said.

Read also: Ahmed Suale murder: Suspect remanded in custody

Mr Essel criticised the practice of keeping suspects in remand without proper evidence, describing it as a ‘constructive conviction’ that undermines the judicial process.

“Remanding someone in custody without solid proof is retrogressive to our judicial system. Why can’t you conduct a thorough investigation before putting someone on trial for murder? If you don’t have any substantial evidence, why keep him detained?” he questioned.

The lawyer described the charges against his client as "shambolic".

“The so-called evidence is just circumstantial claims pieced together. The charge itself is shambolic. There is no evidence or fact to support it. How can you accuse someone of revealing pictures in one breath and in the next, charge him with murder? It doesn’t add up,” he stated.

He urged the police to conduct proper investigations rather than rushing to prosecute without solid proof.

"I don’t have to do their work for them so I don’t know what they want. They just want to remand him, and that is why they came up with these bogus charges today,” he said.



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