Produce certified judgment on Kanco by August 10 – Court orders

An Accra High Court on Tuesday ordered the Registrar of the Circuit Court to furnish it with certified copies of the judgment and proceedings on Bishop Samuel Vaglas Kanco by August 10.

This is to enable the court to hear the application for bail pending an appeal before it.

When the case was called, Mr Anthony Rexford Wiredu, Principal State Attorney, said the judgment on Kanco, who is serving 18-month jail term, was not before the High Court.

He explained why the state had not filed its response.

Mr Wiredu said bail pending an appeal depended on the proceedings from the Circuit Court.

According to him he was not in the matter when it was before the Circuit Court and as such needed to obtain the judgment and proceedings in order to respond.

However, Mr Kissi Adjabeng, counsel for Kanco, told the court that the information he had was contrary to that of the prosecution.

According to him, the judgment was before the High Court reminding the Court that it had ordered the Registrar of the Circuit Court to transmit the judgment to the High Court.

He expressed fears over the lack of a timeframe on the production of the judgment and proceedings to be delivered before the High Court.

Mr Adjabeng recalled that the court had made a similar order to the lower court three months ago and said if the court did not give any timeframe, his client would have served his jail term.

“Already, it’s been three months now that the court made the order and I am afraid by the time the order is complied with, my client would have finished serving his jail term,” he said.

Bishop Kanco has filed an application for bail at the High Court pending the appeal against the 18-month prison sentence handed down by a Circuit Court.

Mr D.E.K. Dzaketsey, the Circuit Court judge, on May 5, 2011, sentenced Bishop Kanco to 18 months’ imprisonment after he was found guilty of defrauding Ms Clova Sutherland, a British woman, of £120,000.

However, the convict says the trial court erred in jailing him. He therefore wants to be released before he begins the process to fight his conviction.

The prosecution said Bishop Kanco collected a cheque of £120,000 from Ms. Sutherland under the guise of praying over it but went ahead to cash the money without her consent, and then disappeared.

While on trial, Kanco created the impression that the money was a gift given to him by Ms. Sutherland.

The complainant, who was unemployed at that time, told the court that the pastor told her he had to pray over the cheque, which bore her boyfriend’s name, because if she gave it to him, he would use it as a point of contact to kill her.

Kanco was also ordered by the court to pay back the money.

Source: GNA