Former Special Prosecutor, Mr. Martin Amidu, has said there is no legal basis for the Government of Ghana pursuing the infamous Airbus saga because the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (UK-SFO) has brought an end to the investigations.
The former Attorney General chronicled in his new epistle on Airbus that “in 2021, the UK Fraud Office quietly closed its investigation into individuals associated with the European aircraft manufacturer, Airbus”.
According to the Anti-Corruption Crusader, the end of the Airbus scandal finalized the long-running probe into fraud, bribery, and corruption-related allegations across the civil and military aviation businesses at Airbus.
Mr. Amidu detailed that the finalization of the case of the UK investigations was that the quadruple British suspects of Ghana’s Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) request were individuals in respect of whom the UK-SFO had not found any tangible reasons on legal grounds to charge for offenses under the nose of the Airbus SE investigations.
He stressed that it is utterly difficult to get the UK Government to give in full detail and provide any MLA in investigations it has closed in regard to its own British nationals.
Mr. Amidu reiterated that he still finds it cumbersome to fathom why his successor, the newly appointed Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyabeng, has towed the line to resurrect a case at the epoch he laid down the tools as Special Prosecutor in 2020, when the Airbus scandal had been closed because of zero evidence and lame walk cooperation on the part of the UK Government as well as the Ghanaian officials.
Mr. Amidu added that Kissi Agyabeng, whom Amidu tagged in his latest epistle as ‘Agyapa’ Special Prosecutor, would open up the case of the Agyapa Royalties deal, as he assured Ghanaians during his vetting, but rather draining state resources on the unnecessary Airbus scandal.
He dispelled the claims by Kissi Agyabeng that he commenced engagements with the authorities in the UK and the United States of America on the Airbus issue.
In his view, he was the very person who began the processes that led to the issuance of arrest warrants for the individuals implicated.
He said in his epistle, “The true facts are that I made a request for MLA through the Attorney General (the Ghana Central Authority) to the central authorities of the United Kingdom and the United States of America before conducting an independent investigation that necessitated charges and the issuance of arrest warrants for four UK nationals for whom I caused the INTERPOL Red Notices to be issued.”
By Lawrence Odoom
