The Herald, has uncovered the names of two key individuals, who are instrumental in brokering what appears to be a truce between the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the legal team of former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin and legal practitioner, Gary Nimako Marfo, were deeply involved in negotiations between the two parties, culminating in an agreement that, Mr Ofori-Atta, currently undergoing medical assessment abroad, is expected to return to Ghana in May 2025. He is set to appear before the OSP by June 2, 2025.
Interestingly, a letter dated February 7, 2025, and sighted by The Herald, initially suggested Ofori-Atta’s return in March 2025. However, subsequent communication from his lawyers, provided updated medical timelines.
Sources close to The Herald, indicate that after a series of fiery exchanges, including a press conference by the OSP and official correspondences, both parties, turned to their mutual contacts—Afenyo-Markin and Nimako Marfo—to facilitate a resolution.
This intervention led to an agreement on a timeline for Ofori-Atta’s return. The former minister, is presently at the Mayo Clinic, a renowned cancer treatment facility in the United States, for observation.
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Notably, this is the same hospital where he sought treatment in 2021, resulting in then-Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, presenting the Budget Statement on his behalf in Parliament.
Gary Nimako, a close associate of Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, played a crucial role in securing a definitive date from Ofori-Atta’s lawyers, which led to a shift in the OSP’s stance.
Consequently, the Special Prosecutor, rescinded his earlier declaration that the former Finance Minister was a “wanted” man.
Addressing Parliament on Tuesday, February 18, 2025, Afenyo-Markin confirmed that Ofori-Atta’s legal team had been in communication with the OSP and affirmed his scheduled return.
The charges against Ofori-Atta include alleged involvement in the Strategic Mobilisation-GRA contract, the termination of the ECG-BXC contract, payments related to the National Cathedral, procurement of ambulances, and the utilization of the Tax Refund Account.
Afenyo-Markin’s statement, follows Agyebeng’s declaration that Ofori-Atta was a fugitive wanted in connection with corruption-related investigations. The Special Prosecutor urged the public to provide information on his whereabouts. However, Afenyo-Markin assured Parliament that the former minister is prepared to undergo an in-person interrogation upon his return.
A letter from Ofori-Atta’s legal representatives, Minkah-Premo, Osei-Bonsu Bruce-Cathline & Partners, read by the Minority Leader in Parliament, stated: “We acknowledge receipt of your letter dated February 17, 2025. We respectfully indicate that our client, who is due for his return, cannot do so before six to eight weeks post-surgical intervention, as stated in the hospital’s letter.
“Our client holds that, considering surgical dates from March 20 to 21 and his recuperation period, he should be able to return to Ghana between May 14 and 30, 2025. We hope you take note of this timeline and use it to schedule a date for his in-person appearance at your office.”
Interestingly, a letter dated February 7, 2025, and sighted by The Herald, initially suggested Ofori-Atta’s return in March 2025. However, subsequent communication from his lawyers provided updated medical timelines.
A prior letter dated January 31, 2025, addressed to the OSP, stated: “Our client is receiving medical attention at Mayo Clinic in the USA, with scheduled appointments indicating a post-March return to Ghana.” The lawyers requested that any in-person attendance required by the OSP be scheduled in accordance with the medical report from his doctors.
Another letter from Ofori-Atta’s lawyers, dated February 17, 2025, accused the Special Prosecutor of abuse of office, vendetta, human rights violations, and forensic language, among other concerns. This suggests an ongoing legal and procedural standoff despite the agreed timeline for his return.
Below is the letter;
RE: DIRECTION TO ATTEND THE OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
As Solicitors of Mr. Kenneth Ofori–Atta we write on the above subject. You may recall that we have since 31* January, 2025 engaged you by correspondence on the above subject, the last of which was our letter of 11th February 2025.
Whilst we awaited your response to our letters of 7″ and 11th February, 2025 respectively, we were sidestepped. You chose to address the public regarding a subject you had initiated by a formal letter addressed to our client. You referred to the public address as MEDIA BRIEFING. At the said event, you told the world “We have chosen the course of answering Mr. Ofori–Atta’s inquiry publicly at this “briefing …..So here we go:”
1. PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
May we respectfully remind you that the SPECIAL PROSECUTOR is a lawyer and bound by the Legal Profession Etiquette Rules 2020, which enjoins you to respond to correspondence of lawyers of represented persons without sidestepping the lawyer.
Your resort to Media Briefing in responding to our letter was off the mark. To have gone further to refer to matters that were not related to our formal correspondence was also unethical and totally unfortunate.
2. POWER TO DECLARE A SUSPECT FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE
In your Media Briefing given on 12th February, 2025, you commenced your encounter with the press by stating what you had done some few minutes previously. You said you had signed a DIRECTIVE that declared our client Kenneth Nana Yaw Ofori–Atta “a fugitive from justice”. Sadly, there was no indication of your source of power and the mode of exercising same.
May we respectfully remind you that we are in a country of rule of law and that each step a public officer takes must be guided by the rule of law. The DSP, which is under the Ministry of Justice, does not have more power than the ATTORNEY GENERAL, who is also a lawyer. Respectfully, the ATTORNEY GENERAL does not purport to have the power to declare people “fugitive from justice” by a DIRECTIVE he signs without any legal foundation. As a Special Prosecutor, it is only a fraction of the ATTORNEY–GENERAL’s mandate that has been entrusted to you and we humbly request you to bear this in mind in exercising the powers of your office.
3. THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK OF THE OSP IN YOUR INVESTIGATIVE FUNCTIONS
Ghana being a Republic and guided by the rule of law has not left criminal matters without procedure. The regulatory framework that should guide the police in the exercise of its investigative powers must not be unknown to your office. Luckily, the Act which establishes your office sees you as possessing the powers of the Police. It is our respectful view that if you do not find the letter of the law stipulating any provision under the Criminal Procedure Act giving you any power to declare a person “fugitive from justice”, your best bet is to be guided by practice, provided any such practice does not offend our human rights values.
We wish to bring to your notice that we are aware of the practice of the police in describing people as WANTED PERSONS. It has been the practice of the Police in describing people as WANTED where a person summoned cannot by the exercise of due diligence be found. Had you desired to follow the practice of the Police, you would have had to establish meeting the threshold of having failed to find our client “by the exercise of due diligence.
With respect, on your showing, your office has not even met this threshold so as to mimic what the Police Officers do.
In your Media Briefing, you indicated that “on or around 2 January 2025” Mr. Ofori–Atta was not in the jurisdiction.
In his absence the DSP on 24th January, 2025 communicated to him that he was considered “a suspect in respect of four” cases. The said communication to him when Mr. Ofori–Atta was out of the jurisdiction directed him “to attend, in person, the OSP on Monday 10” February 2025.
Though Mr. Ofori–Atta had not been in the jurisdiction he engaged Counsel to assist the OSP in any manner until his return in the jurisdiction.
Respectfully, this is not a conduct of a person fleeing from justice. Our client’s whereabouts and purpose had been made clear to you by his Solicitors.
We respectfully say that in view of the above you cannot say that our client by ‘the exercise of due diligence cannot be found”by your office, so as to indulge in a practice of declaring somebody WANTED.
It is significant to remind you that you could not respect your own timelines. Your letter of 5th February 2025 had indicated that “by the close of business on Monday 10th February 2025 a reasonable date of your return to the jurisdiction,” and that on a failure to do so “the OSP would take all necessary legal steps to secure your return to the jurisdiction”. By the close of business on the 10″ of February 2025, your office had received a letter from our office written on behalf of our client Mr. Ofori–Atta requesting for a post–March date when our client could be in Ghana, in view of the letter received from the medical facility called Mayo Clinic. This obviously was not an indication of a request for Mr. Ofori–Atta “to be away indefinitely from the jurisdiction”.
The request made to the OSP was rather that any time fixed by the OSP for our client’s attendance in person should take into account what the letter from the medical facility had said. Having met the OSP’s timeline to indicate reasonable date, it is our humble view that there occurred a failure to observe administrative justice when the OSP failed to write back to us as Mr. Ofori-Atta’s Solicitors but purported to declare him a “fugitive of justice” on the 12th of February at a Media Briefing.
4. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION
May your office be reminded of freedom of movement as a human right and alsoenshrined in our Constitution to be promoted, respected and enforced. This is a right that our client had enjoyed well before 24th January, 2025, Any Act of the OSP as a State institution that seeks to abridge that right cannot be undertaken without regard to the provisions of the Constitution. Any such disregard shall constitute violation.
It is our humble opinion that your candour would have been of interest to the public or media if you had indicated that prior to Mr. Ofori–Atta’s trip, he had written to the former Chief of Staff, Mrs. Akosua Frema Osei–Opare. He had also notified Mr. Julius Debrah of his foreign trip upon his assumption of office as Chief of Staff. We wonder if it was a deliberate concealment of fact or an oversight at the Media Briefing by the OSP when these facts were not disclosed to the public.
Can we infer from that non–disclosure that the OSP did so with a view to finding a ground for its illegal declaration of our client as a “fugitive from justice” in our respectful view, any act calculated by a State entity to abridge the human rights of any person constitutes a violation and we shall not hesitate to carry out our client’s instruction to seek such a declaration.
5. INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES OF THE OSP
In your Media Briefing you did indicate that the OSP has Intelligence resources, and you do access same frequently. You disclosed in your Media Briefing that you relied on such Intelligence resources to reach a conclusion that “the purported raid on Mr. Ofori–Atta’s residence was staged”.
You went further to say that OSP’s Intelligence, “which would not be revealed at this time “led you to your conclusions not only on the raid but also in your conviction that the medical letter from Mayo Clinic of USA “is only a ruse employed by Ofori–Atta in aid of his intention to avoid his return to the jurisdiction”.
If the OSP’s Intelligence could not establish that prior to Mr. Ofori–Atta’s trip outside Ghana, he had informed the current Chief of Staff, just as he had done with the previous Chief of Staff, kindly find attached hereto copies of those letters marked as Appendix A and B, respectively. We hope this should help you to review your position on your Intelligence resources.
As regards the existence of a medical facility known as Mayo Clinic, your Intelligence resource should have been able to easily establish its existence even by Google. A follow–up on the authenticity of the letter from the said medical facility could easily have clarified the matter for you.
We find it perplexing that the OSP’s Intelligence Resources would not have known of the serious illness challenges of Mr. Ofori–Atta, (the Former Finance Minister of the Republic) since the Covid Pandemic period, challenges which were unfortunately very much in the public space.
The shortfall in the OSP’s Intelligence capacity was further revealed when the invasion of Mr. Ofori–Atta’s house was established and your assertion that it was staged by Mr. Ofori–Atta was disproved by Parliament. Indeed, the Majority Leader on the floor of Parliament, did concede that the trespass happened and apologized for it on behalf of Government and National Security. Should the DSP’s Intelligence Resources be in doubt of this position, kindly check from the Hansard.
The OSP’s Intelligence will no doubt have informed you that Mr. Ofori–Atta has faced CHRAJ, EOCO and Censure in Parliament in the course of his work as Minister for Finance and in all cases, has appeared in person, respectfully to respond to all queries. This invitation from the OSP will no doubt be responded to as soon as he is able to do so in person.
May we respectfully suggest that you tread cautiously on your reliance of your outfit’s Intelligence in reaching conclusions on matters of personal liberty and also for your general operation. If your outfit requires RESETTING, we respectfully suggest to your Board to seek assistance from the appropriate quarters.
We respectfully suggest that you avoid an impression that 1. The OSP’s Intelligence resources are moribund, or 2. that you maliciously elected to disregard all the information available to you, a situation that feeds into “vendetta against Mr. Ofori– Atta”.
6. ABUSE OF PUBLIC INSTITUTION FACILITIES AND WASTE OF RESOURCES
As you are aware, it is cheaper and simpler to respond to a lawyer’s letter also by letter. This is not only demanded by the ethics of our noble profession but also by administrative justice. Your use of Media Briefing in responding to our letter on behalf of our client was totally out of place financially and also in terms of time.
Respectfully, this mode of responding to lawyers’ letter is not a matter for us to address as your august office has a Board. It is hoped that the Board may guide you in the prevention of waste.
7. FORENSIC LANGUAGE
It was with much surprise to learn that there were charges our client had to address. Though you did indicate in your first letter of invitation that our client was a suspect regarding some four (4) issues. Your letter stated that it was an investigation you have commenced “into suspected corruption and corruption–related offences”. We were baffled to learn from your Media Briefing that you had elevated the investigations higher by calling them “charges”.
What made it worsewas when the four matters became five (5) at the time of your Media Briefing. Kindly indicate whether your office has specific charges as you indicated at the Media Briefing for which our client has to defend himself or you are still conductinginvestigations to determine what charges you arg to proffer against him.
8. VENDETTA AGAINST MR. OFORI-ATTA
You had used the phrase “vendetta against Mr. Ofori–Atta” in your Media Briefing. We hasten to say that the conclusions you reached on the invasion of our client’s home and his sojourn for medical attention run contrary to established facts. Your haste in declaration of our client as a “fugitive from justice” without showing the sources of power gives us basis to evaluate your “personal vendetta” assertions in the right light.
Should you feel conflicted kindly let the Board of the OSP know for it to consider removing you from handling the investigations for which the OSP wrote to our client under your hand.
You cast aspersions defamatory of our client in the Media Briefing, which feeds into your purported DECLARATION that sought to render Mr. Ofori Atta a “fugitive from justice.” We have taken note of this, and our client’s rights are reserved.
It is our humble view that it may serve the CSP well to immediately take steps to reverse all missteps that have been taken by you as Special Prosecutor in the name of the DSP. In other words„ we request you to reverse the purported declaration that Mr. Ofori– Atta is a “fugitive from justice”.
We do have our client’s instructions to seek appropriate court orders regarding the threat of violation of his human rights and your abuse of power in the name of the OSP.
Our client’s commitment to cooperate in investigations still stands and we continue to hold his instructions to provide any assistance that would be legally required by the OSP until he is back in the jurisdiction.
It is our humble view therefore, that it may serve the OSP well if you immediately took steps to reverse all missteps that have been taken by you as Special Prosecutor in the name of the OSP; in particular, declaring Mr. Ofori–Atta a “fugitive from Justice” and one who stages a raid on his own residence.
We believe if these missteps should be reversed by the appropriate mode, including another Media Briefing, it may certainly minimize any inference of malice and a “contrived vendetta against Mr. Ofori–Atta”.
