A pensioner, John Wellis Welbeck, on Wednesday appeared before an Accra Circuit court for making conflicting grants in respect of the same piece of land to three persons.
John was said to have made the conflicting grants on a parcel land he owns at Abossey Okai, near the Total Filling Station.
He pleaded not guilty and has since been remanded into police custody to reappear on January 15 2014.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Patrick Morkeh, said the complainant is the manager of Caltec Motors Limited, located at the Malam Junction, while the accused person is a pensioner and a self styled business man, residing at Adabraka, and owns a parcel of land situated at Abossey Okai.
He said somewhere in September 2010, the accused approached the complainant and told him he was offering the land for sale, and the complainant expressed interest.
He said the documents of the land were given to the complainant, and he made verification of it at the lands commission after which he expressed satisfaction that the ownership of the land was true.
DSP Morkeh said after negotiation, the two agreed on an amount of GHc300,000.00, which the complainant paid and the accused also signed the necessary documents pertaining to the sale of the property to the complainants company.
He told the court that surprisingly, whiles the land commission was in the process of granting consent to the assignment made by the accused to complainant, two more applications for consent to assign in respect of the same plot of land were received by the commission from the accused.
The prosecution said due to the conflicting statement by the accused as to which of the cited assignment should be processed, the commission wrote a letter dated February 1, 2011 to the complainant and accused.
He said the letter indicated that, to ensure sanity in the land market, the commission had decided to suspend the processing of any of the purported assignment by the accused.
DSP Morkeh told the court that, the complainant, worried about the development made a report to the police, and during investigations the accused admitted having sold the land to three different buyers including the complainant.
He said the accused has since not been able to refund the money to the complainant
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