REPORT: Cocaine Turned Into Baking Soda Before Being Brought To Court

The four-member committee set up by the Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Woode to investigate the circumstances under which 1020 grams of cocaine was turned into baking powder has held that if there was any swapping, it was done before the substance was tendered in evidence at the court premises. The Committee, in its final report, concluded that the swapping was done before being brought to court on September 27. The Justice Agnes Dodzie-led committee, after a weeklong probe found that the substance tendered in court on the 27th September, 2011 was not cocaine and stated in its report released on Tuesday that cocaine has a pungent smell but based on corroborated evidence before it the substance alleged to be cocaine had no such smell when tendered in court. The Executive Summary of the report chanced upon by peacefmonline.com indicates �Evidence before us further confirms the fact that the substance that was presented to the Court on the 27th September 2011 was the same substance produced on the 28th September 2011. It is the same substance that came in to the hands of the Committee at its sitting. The Circuit Court Judge and his staff therefore cannot be held responsible for the change that occurred in the substance between 6th October 2008 when the substance was tested to be cocaine and 27th of September 2011 when the prosecution tendered exhibit �C� in Court.� It further stated: �From our analysis of the evidence above the substance that was tendered in court on the 27th September 2011 and admitted in evidence as exhibit �C� and was opened in open court did not have the pungent smell of cocaine and therefore it could not have been cocaine. It follows that if any swapping of the substance took place it was done before it was presented to the Court.�