Mohammed Hafiz Abdullah, the Dema Naa of Tamale has insisted on claims that investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas took a bribe of $50,000 to take a case he had investigated about him out of court.
The Dema Naa said he was made to part with the money fearing that the court prosecution would bring him embarrassment so he bribed the renowned undercover journalist with $50,000.
The claims by the Tamale chiefs corroborate Ken Agyapong’s claims of fraud against Anas who has been under fire from a section of the Ghanaian populace this week.
Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong has been on a mission to expose award-winning investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas following the latter’s ‘Number 12’ expose which is set to be premiered from June 6 across the country.
Mohammed Hafiz Abdullah narrated the whole issue to Kwame Afrifa-Mensah during an interview on Happy FM‘s Epa Hoa Daben show.
“I was in my office when my brother came to tell me in my office that there is this business that he wants me to handle for him. He said a company called Omega Strategic Services from Dubai will call.”
He added, “They are buying gold from this country and I will keep it as storage and send it to them later in Dubai. So I said okay no problem, so at a point in time, the CEO of the Omega Strategic Service called me and said this is the situation but he is going to send the money into my account if am I okay with that and I said no problem, but it has to go into an escrow account because if you’re transferring money to me through my company’s account, there are charges and our security keys too will be taken so put all together and send it and he agreed, so he transferred $1.9 million into my account.”
“Some of the money was to pay for the gold and also my charges, and my security charges so they transferred the money to us. The money was in my account for about one to months and nothing was happening. The company that was supposed to supply them with them with the gold was not bringing them.”
“One day the OSS people called to tell me that the people have called to complain to them that I am the one wasting their time because I am not giving them the money, but I made them aware that hey had not brought the gold. And he said, no give the money to them and I said fine it’s your money, if you want me to transfer it why not. So I transferred the money and took my charges out leaving about $300,000, after I wasn’t hearing from the guys then all of a sudden one day I heard that a gentleman came to my office looking for me, I asked and they said they didn’t know him. My watchman also called to tell me that a gentleman went looking for me around 4:30pm and said he was going to return later and I said no problem.”
“I went home after close of work. Around 11:30pm I heard police sirens and they had surrounded my house, so I said to myself why has the police surrounded my house. I told the police I wasn’t going to step out of the house. I told them I won’t come outside and get shot and later be tagged as an armed robber, they said they won’t do anything to me. I told them they can wait outside if they wanted and I will come out in the morning when there is day light so that people around will know when you are taking me somewhere and they will know these are the people taking me away.”
“I asked for their ID cards in the morning and they threw it over the wall, I saw that they were police officers and Anas was with them. I know him, I even thought he was a CID because he had plain clothes on, I invited them to sit in my car so we can go to the CID office like they said they were sending me. The director of CID was Adu Poku by then.”
“At the CID headquarters he introduced himself to me as Anas and that he did the investigation, I wrote my statement and I was bailed the following day, and asked to find lawyers because the case was going to be processed in court.”
“It was moved from the Magistrate Court to the High Court because the judge said the amount of money involved was huge. We went to court 1 judge Quist, she’s a woman.”
“The judge said Anas wanted the case to be held (in-camera) meaning it should be held in private. They called me one day and said one of his people wants to meet me in my office. He told me to give him $50,000 so that he sees what he can do about the case because the case has been in court for long. When I gave him the money I didn’t hear from him again. The case was adjourned every time we went to court. So I can tell you that Anas is not a saint, I’m one of numerous victims ” he deduced.
By: Susan Amoako Agyemang
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