Spokesperson for 'The New Force' remanded

Kaneshie District Court has remanded into lawful custody Shalimar Abbiusi, a foreigner, believed to be associated with a new political group with the identity, “The New Force”.

She was arraigned by the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).

The Kaneshie District court did not take the plea of the accused person but read out the facts in open court.

Abbiusi, a Belgian and Spokesperson of “The New Force,” is being held on the charge of “obtaining for yourself a student permit by false declaration”.

The court gave prosecution a few days to conclude investigations and remanded the accused person into lawful custody to reappear on Monday December 11, 2023.

Jamal Tonzua, who represented the accused person, told the court that GIS just wanted to abuse the rights of his client and that under Ghana’s Constitution, she was entitled to fair trial, saying the GIS should have concluded their investigations before coming to court.

The defence counsel prayed for bail on the grounds that his client was not a flight risk.

According to counsel, the accused person’s passport was with GIS and that the Service should be able to detect her movements.

The counsel said the accused person had men of substance to stand as sureties.

The prosecution led by Assistant Commissioner of Immigration Adolf Aboagye Asenso prayed the court to remand the accused person to enable the State to ascertain the accused person’s mission in the country and her activities.

The prosecutor said the State needed time to come to a logical conclusion about her involvement in political activities in the country.

The prosecution said the tendency of the accused person interfering with other witnesses and activities was high.

It was the case of the prosecution that the student permit that the accused person obtained was done through false declaration because “she is not a student in any of the schools in Ghana”.

Prosecution said, “as we speak, she is an illegal immigrant, so the court cannot grant bail to an illegal immigrant because the court would be perpetuating illegality.”

The facts before the court are that the accused person was arrested upon an invitation by the Head of National Enforcement Section at the GIS headquarters in relation to her immigration status in the country.

The prosecution said the GIS’s attention was drawn to the activities of the accused on social media.

It said the accused was found in some short video in circulation introducing the emergence of a new political grouping described as “The New Force”.

The prosecution said the accused person introduced herself as a Spokesperson for the Force.

The prosecution told the court that investigations revealed that the accused person first came to Ghana on September 4, 2017, through the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) and had since been a regular visitor to the country until 2018 when she became a resident following her supposed admission as a student of the Ghana University College.

The prosecutor said checks from the College revealed that she had never been a student.

It said documents purportedly issued by the College to support her application for residence permit were allegedly forged.