The High Court in Accra, has declined a request from the lawyers of the founder of Beige Bank to cross-examine a principal state witness in the case for two months equals to 1,444 hours, saying they can only get 12 hours.
Michael Nyineku, is before the court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a court of appeal judge, sitting as an additional High Court judge.
He has been arraigned for charges for stealing and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, including an alleged theft of some GHc1.2 billion.
During the final day of the case management conference, on Friday, January 13, 2023, Justice Asare-Botwe, one of the judges recently elevated to the Court of Appeal announced that the first prosecution witness, Julius Ayivor, will give his Evidence-in-Chief for only 10 minutes.
Interestingly, the said witness has attached to his witness statement some 88 exhibits which are crucial to the matter.
Asked by Justice Asare-Botwe, how much time counsel for the accused would need for cross-examination, Baffour Gyau Bonsu Ashia, holding a brief for Thaddeus Sory, informed the court they would need two months.
The response appeared to have surprised the judge, and then asked counsel to put his request into hours.
Counsel after consulting his phone calculator, said he would need a total of 1, 444 hours.
An unhappy Justice Asare-Botwe, wondered if that was a joke from lawyer Bonsu, saying, “I think you don’t know what you are doing so I will give you 12 hours.”
The court said, even if counsel is spending 10 minutes on each exhibit, the time will not exceed 10 hours.
It was the case of counsel that the 88 exhibits attached to the witness statement are crucial especially should the witness prove evasive.
But Justice Asare-Botwe retbutted that the court cannot allow him that luxury of time and that if he asked a relevant question, the 12 hours should be enough.
In December last year, Beige Bank founder’s bail was varied by the Court of Appeal from an outrageous GH¢200 million to GH¢20 million.
This came after the lawyer for Mr Nyinaku, Baffour Gyawu Bonsu Ashia, on Wednesday, December 14, moved a motion on notice for a variation of the bail sum after the Financial and Economic Court of the Accra High Court granted him bail of GH¢200 million after he pleaded not guilty to charges of theft and money laundering.
The state filed an affidavit in opposition, but the court, after hearing the application from Nyinaku’s lawyer, varied the bail sum from GH¢200 million to GH¢20 million with four sureties to be justified.
The Court of Appeal was chaired by Justice Dzamefe.
Mike Nyinaku has been slapped with charges of theft and money laundering after he was earlier accused of stealing over GH¢340 million at a circuit court.
The facts of the new case at the High Court indicated that when Beige Bank’s license was revoked in August 2018, a review of the financial and other records of the bank revealed some suspicious and unusual transactions, which were subsequently reported.
Investigations revealed that between 2015 and 2018, Nyinaku allegedly used various means to transfer huge sums of money to companies related to him and for his benefit.
The funds transferred were depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank, the investigators claimed.
Between 2017 and 2018, Nyinaku caused the transfer of 10,071 Beige Bank fixed deposit accounts in which various customers placed a total of GH¢448.636,210.21 to Beige Capital Asset Management Limited (BCAM) without their knowledge or consent.
Investigations also revealed that between 2017 and 2018, Mr. Nyinaku caused the transfer of 35 fixed deposit investments of 23 customers of Beige Bank totaling GH¢141,042,348.92 to the Beige Group.
Investigations further revealed that, sometime in March 2018, Mr. Nyinaku caused a fictitious second account to be opened in the name of First Africa Savings and Loans (FASL), an existing account holder with Beige Bank, without the knowledge of the board and management of FASL.
