The trial of the Member of Parliament for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson continued on Tuesday, July 18 with cross-examination of the first witness of the prosecution after weeks of attempts by lawyers of the accused to stay proceedings.
Lawyers for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) legislator had filed proceedings at the Court of Appeal over a decision of the trial judge not to stay proceedings pending an appeal on the decision to hear the matter on a daily basis.
He also invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to quash the June 16 decision to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis.
But when the case was called on Tuesday, Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame indicated that none of the applications filed acted as a stay of proceedings nor compels the court not to continue with the hearing of the matter.
Counsel for the accused, Tsatsu Tsikata then continued with a cross-examination of the prosecution’s first witness.
During the cross-examination, Tsatsu Tsikata posed questions to the fact that the accused was cleared by the Electoral Commission to contest the 2020 polls despite a complaint before the commission on the accused holding allegiance to another country other than Ghana.
But the witness, Richard Takyi-Mensah explained that, to the best of his knowledge, the decision of the commission was based on information put before it by the accused.
