<<Print>>

Information reaching the New Crusading Guide indicates that the charges leveled but the Attorney General and Minister of Justice against Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Akwasi Osei Adjei would be changed today in court. According to the source the A-G having realized that the charges against Mr. Osei Adjei were not weighty will today replace them with about five new charges and seek adjournment of the case in court. The former Minister in the early days of Professor Mills� administration was hauled to the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) for his role in the important of rice from India to Ghana. When he appears before the High Court today, he is expected to respond to charges of stealing, causing financial loss to the state, abuse of public office, conspiracy to commit crime, and contravention of the Public Procurement Act as he was told last week but the charges may be varied according to sources. It would be recalled that an Accra Human rights Court, recently ordered the BNI to release the passport of the former Minister within seven days. The court declined the Attorney General the right to continuously hold the passport its application of stay of execution. The judge, Justice U.P Dery upheld his earlier decision that the seizure of the passport was a violation of Mr Osei Adjei�s fundamental human rights and asked the BNI to handover the passport to him. The Deputy Attorney General, Ebo Barton-Odro, who applied for a stay of executive, argued that if the passport was released and their appeal against the ruling succeeded, the outcome of the appeal would be defeated. The Attorney General�s Department therefore filed a stay of execution of the ruling to return the former Foreign Affairs Minister�s passport. The stay will enable the A-G appeal the ruling, the second on the case after the first appeal last month was thrown out of court. However the Appeals Court last Wednesday adjourned the case indefinitely because the A-G�s office said it was yet to get a copy of the last month�s court ruling to enable it to file an appropriate defense.