GHc1.3m gold scam: Court orders IGP to stop hounding Basintale

DSP Emmanuel Basintale

An Accra High Court has ordered the Inspector General of Police (IGP), to with immediate effect cease any disciplinary proceedings against former East Legon District Commander, DSP Emmanuel Basintale and four others, alleged to be involved in a gold scam.

The order follows a judgment of the court exonerating the senior Police officer from complicity in the gold scam, involving a licensed US gold buying firm, Green Global Resources.

The court also quashed all initial disciplinary actions taken against DSP Basintale. The five police officers were interdicted for the alleged unlawful seizure of 13 gold bars from a gold buying firm.

Lawyer Kissi Adjabeng, counsel for the embattled police officers, conveyed the judgment to Citi News, which largely went in his client’s favour. The Police administration had already reinstated the officer after he had initially been interdicted after preliminary investigations implicated him in the scandal.

“We practically have everything that we asked for, except the court did not grant us costs. An order has been giving crushing all disciplinary proceedings that were purportedly instituted against them.”

The Ghana Police Service and the IGP have been prohibited from further continuing with the matter in respect to DSP Basintale.

He also hinted that, police officers, media houses and other people who made supposed defamatory comments during the trial will be sued.

“We are going to go to the next step of suing each and every person for defamation. That suit is not going to be a respecter of persons. If you said anything untoward against them, if you defamed them, the next thing is we are going to sue.”

Background

Green Global Resources accused the Ghana Police of serious corruption at the highest level in the case of an alleged GHc 1.3 million gold scam.

This alleged gold scam saw DSP Basintale, and six others interdicted after they were said to have seized 13 gold bars from Green Global Resources, under the pretext that they bought stolen gold.

The group is believed to have been led by DSP Basintale.

DSP Basintale and his three other colleagues subsequently threatened to sue the Police Service for defamation.

Their Lawyer, Kissi Agyabeng, argued that his clients “have borne in silence the brunt of the odium the publications reduced them to in their name, reputation and standing in society, until now.”

Mr. Agyabeng maintained that, his clients were dutifully doing their job when they arrested persons from Green Global Resources.

He further insisted that his clients did not engage in any criminality by any stretch of the legal and factual imagination.

He argued that the Ghana Police Service is perpetuating an illegality by purporting to hold a service enquiry in respect of his clients in flagrant violation of C.I 76.

Source: citifmonline.com