{"id":108346,"date":"2025-12-24T17:23:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=108346"},"modified":"2025-12-24T17:23:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:23:44","slug":"u-s-lawyer-suggests-gra-sml-case-is-politically-motivated-says-ofori-atta-isnt-evading-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=108346","title":{"rendered":"U.S. lawyer suggests GRA\u2013SML case is politically motivated; says Ofori-Atta isn\u2019t evading justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Enayat Qasimi, an international legal practitioner and lead counsel for former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, has described the ongoing GRA\u2013SML case as politically driven, insisting that his client is not attempting to evade justice.<\/p>\n

Speaking in an interview with the BBC, Qasimi argued that investigative authorities, particularly the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), were fully aware that Mr Ofori-Atta was abroad for medical treatment and therefore had no justification to trigger a Red Notice against him.<\/p>\n

Qasimi maintained that his client remains willing to cooperate with Ghana\u2019s legal process and has no intention of avoiding accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is fully committed to complying with the laws of Ghana, and he is fully committed to answering for anything that he did when he was the finance minister. There is absolutely no question about that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to him, the central issue is whether Mr Ofori-Atta\u2019s constitutional rights are being respected throughout the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is, is he being given the rights that he\u2019s guaranteed under Ghanaian law? He is not, and he has never been,\u201d Qasimi stated.<\/p>\n

He further claimed that the OSP was fully informed about Ofori-Atta\u2019s whereabouts and medical condition at the time the Red Notice was issued.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Ofori-Atta was receiving treatment. He was in the US, and they knew all along. There was no purpose for issuing the Red Notice, but they went ahead and issued it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Ofori-Atta is facing 78 counts of corruption alongside seven others in connection with the Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) revenue assurance contract with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).<\/p>\n

The charges include alleged breaches of Section 23(1) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) and Section 92(2)(b) of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Minister for Justice and Attorney General, Dr Dominic Ayine, announced on December 18 that his office has formally submitted an extradition request to the United States for MMrOfori-Atta and an alleged accomplice, Ernest Akore, as investigations continue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"U.S.Enayat Qasimi, an international legal practitioner and lead counsel for former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, has described the ongoing GRA\u2013SML case as politically driven, insisting that his client is not attempting to evade justice. Speaking in an interview with the BBC, Qasimi argued that investigative authorities, particularly the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), were [\u2026]<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14120,1900,1448,1883,117,10,9,5359,14452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extradition","category-hp-news-2","category-ken-ofori-atta","category-national","category-news","category-politics","category-popular","category-sml","category-us-lawyer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}