Former Deputy Attorney-General Alfred Tuah-Yeboah has criticised the Court of Appeal’s decision to acquit former Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) Chief Executive Officer, Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu, arguing that the appellate court failed to properly evaluate the evidence presented at her trial.
The Court of Appeal on Thursday, July 30, overturned Madam Tamakloe-Attionu’s conviction and 10-year prison sentence after ruling that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges against her beyond reasonable doubt.
The decision set aside the earlier judgment of the High Court, which had found her guilty of multiple offences.
Mr Tuah-Yeboah, however, maintained that the evidence before the trial court was sufficient to sustain the conviction, insisting that the appellate court reached the wrong conclusion by focusing on only selected aspects of the case instead of the totality of the evidence.
According to him, anyone seeking to understand the merits of the case should read both the trial court’s judgment and that of the Court of Appeal rather than relying solely on the appellate court’s ruling.
Speaking in an interview on Citi FM, the former Deputy Attorney-General said, “The court shall not set aside the judgment on the grounds that the charges were defective. And let me also place on record, anyone who wants to appreciate the actual evidence in this particular case will be doing himself a great disservice if he chooses to look at the Court of Appeal judgment alone without regard to the judgment given by the trial court.
“What the Court of Appeal did in this particular instance is to isolate areas that they thought were convenient to them. If you take the actual judgment, you will realise that what they did was rather a shoddy job. What is the evidence on record, because they also indicated that there wasn’t evidence on record? And I can say that there was this mountain of evidence on record that was never availed, and those pieces of evidence on record would lead any reasonable court to a conclusion that Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu had a case to answer.”
The Attorney-General has since announced that the state will challenge the Court of Appeal’s decision at the Supreme Court.
