Sir John’s Will: Special Prosecutor can’t prosecute a dead man – Amaliba

The Director of Legal Affairs of the opposition NDC, Abraham Amaliba, believes the Special Prosecutor is not the right person to investigate the leaked will of the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie aka Sir John.

According to him, the investigation should not only focus on Sir John and must be done by a bipartisan committee.

The late Sir John, who served as the CEO of the Forestry Commission, has been in the news in recent days after the contents of his will were made public.

Portions of the will shows he has given parts of the Achimota Forest and the Ramsar Site at Sakumono to members of his family, among other properties worth millions.

Last week, the Office of the Special Prosecutor released a statement saying it was going to investigate the leaked will, citing suspected corruption and unlawful acquisition of state lands.

But reacting to this, Mr. Amaliba said a dead man cannot be prosecuted and, therefore, called for a bipartisan committee to rather investigate the matter.

“We need a bipartisan committee from parliament to deal with it. It should be opened to the public, let us invite people to testify, we will get to know how the forest was distributed to public servants apart from Sir John,” he said on TV3’s Key Points programme on Saturday.

“If you want the OSP to do it he will just limit himself to the will and that will not address our pain. Our pain is that a number of people have acquired state lands which is not just Sir John.”

“If you are conducting a criminal investigation your intention is to prosecute, how are you going to prosecute a dead man?”

Meanwhile, the Lands Commission has already denied having any records of Sir John owning lands at the Achimota Forest.

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