OSP denies AG's claims on FBI report in Cecilia Dapaah case

Ghanaian

Sammy Appiah Darko, the Director of the Strategy, Research, and Communication Division at the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), has rebutted assertions made by the Attorney General regarding the availability of details from the FBI's corruption investigation in the Cecilia Dapaah case.

He clarified that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) did not request the FBI's corruption investigation

Read full articlereport, contrary to claims by the Attorney General.

Darko argued that even if such a request had been made, proper inter-agency collaboration and clearance procedures would have been necessary before disseminating the FBI report.

The clarification follows the Attorney General's advice against initiating money laundering investigations into Cecilia Dapaah's dealings, citing a lack of evidence of corruption or corruption-related offenses found by the OSP.

"At no point in time did EOCO request a copy of the FBI report. You notice that in that paragraph that talks about the investigative report, EOCO never said that they requested a report. They rather said that they had not seen the FBI report. So we want to make it very clear," Darko said.

"Even if EOCO requested it, this FBI report has a lot of confidentiality clauses on it that were directed particularly to the Special Prosecutor and you can't just give an FBI report to another agency because you have the case transferred there."

"There ought to be a lot of inter-agency collaboration and clearance. So if that happened, then, we may have triggered clearance so that either we are cleared by the FBI or FBI will directly send it to them," he added.

Despite the Attorney General's assertions, Darko maintained that the OSP provided substantial information to EOCO, indicating no obligation to conduct a separate money laundering investigation.

He highlighted that the OSP's focus was on corruption and related offenses, not money laundering, thereby contesting the necessity of preparing a separate report for EOCO on money laundering allegations.