Member of Parliament for Gushegu, Hassan Tampuli, has defended the former finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta’s appeal to the Office of the Special Prosecutor to engage them virtually.
According to him, there is no law that forces the former finance minister to appear physically for interrogation.
Speaking on Accra-based Channel 1 Television, he explained that it is because that has been the norm for years that is why his physical presence is expected.
However, in the era of digitization, he can engage digitally to be interrogated by the office of the special prosecutor if they want to.
“He doesn’t have to appear before them in person. He can even speak to them on the phone. He can engage in a video link with them. In fact, there is no law anywhere that says he must appear in person. So let’s be very clear about this one; it is because that has been the norm over time.
But in this era of digitalization, you can’t use the absence of a person as a basis to say the person is unreachable when indeed there is a way that you can meet the person. Of course, they can say is that they want to be able to engage him to see who is behind him and probably giving him answers. You can move to the locus, they have every opportunity under the mutual legal assistance act to travel to the United States and engage him physically and bring the evidence,” he explained on Channel 1 Television in an interview.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Special Prosecutor has insisted that they need the physical presence of Ken Ofori-Atta and has, as such, declared him wanted after he failed to meet the June 2 deadline of appearing before the office.
