Attorney General’s Department yesterday appeared at the Supreme Court (SC), after the five-member panel of judges threatened to go ahead and make a determination of the case against the hosting of the two former Guantanamo detainees (Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby) in Ghana.
The Attorney General, Hon. Marietta Brew Oppong, through a representative told the Supreme Court that there was no formal agreement between the Government of Ghana and the United States, prior to the hosting of the two former Guantanamo Bay Gitmo detainees in the country.
According to the Acting Solicitor General, Helen Ziwu, who represented the A-G in court, explained further that the only form of agreement was a ‘note verbale’ which is a diplomatic communication prepared in the third person and unsigned.
The acting Solicitor General made this startling revelation after lawyers for the two plaintiffs who are in court over the hosting of the two former detainees, filed an interlocutory application asking government to produce the agreement which brought the two men into the country.
However, the Supreme Court in its ruling on the application instructed the A-G to produce the said agreement (note verbale’) in camera at its next sitting on the 6th of July.
It would be recalled that two Ghanaian citizens, one Madam Margaret Bamful and Mr Henry Nana Boakye, all residents in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, about a month ago, sued the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, together with the Minister of Interior, accusing President John Mahama of illegally bringing in the two former Gitmo detainees, without recourse to the laws of the land.
The plaintiffs are seeking among other reliefs a “declaration that on a true and proper interpretation of Article 75 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the President of the Republic of Ghana acted unconstitutionally by agreeing to the transfer of the two former Guantanamo detainees to the country.
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