The Police Officer at the Police Forensic Laboratory who initially tested the missing cocaine at the centre of a probe committee, David Agyemang Agyin, yesterday testified that the substance that was presented to him to examine on August 29, 2008 weighed 1,430 grams and was totally different from what was contained in the current package.
According to him, even without official testing, there was a visible indication that the package had been tampered with and the substance changed.
Mr. Agyin, who made the declaration when he was asked by the chairman of the committee set up by the Chief Justice to investigate the cocaine-turned-baking soda saga, opened the exhibit in the presence of the panel and the public and commented on it, stating that the first substance which was cocaine was smoother than what was in the envelope now.
He also pointed out that it appeared part of the substance had been scooped while the envelope had been changed but the committee had, in its previous sitting, been told the envelope was changed at the court after the seal was broken.
Later, when Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, the judge who sat on the case appeared, he defended himself, saying there was no basis for anybody to involve him in the case as he did exactly what a judge was supposed to do during the trial.
The judge blamed the police officers handling the case. He said since the cocaine case was brought to court, the police were never serious and appeared lackadaisical in their attitude towards prosecuting the case.
The trial judge said his decision to allow the exhibit to go for re-testing was firmly based on a precedent by Justice Georgina Wood�s ruling on the Jackon Vs KLM case in which the Court of Appeal ruled that merely because the defendant did not demand verification of an exhibit tendered in evidence did not preclude him from doing so during trial.
Justice Kyei Baffour reiterated that the fact that the substance had also been with the police for three years made him to perceive no wrong with the counsel�s plea that the exhibit should be re-tested.
The trial judge had been accused by the State Attorney, Stella Arhin, who in her testimony, said she was scolded by the trial judge when she attempted to challenge the re-testing of the exhibit.
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