William Ato Essien, the founder and former CEO of the collapsed Capital Bank, asked the Supreme Court for a special leave to appeal, but it denied his request Wednesday.
In order to appeal the Court of Appeal's decision to dismiss his appeal against the High Court's admission of an unsigned minute of a meeting between the executive committee and some board members of the defunct bank, the application asked the court for permission under Rule 7 of the Supreme Court Rules.
Fitzgerald Odonkor, the former managing director of the now-defunct bank, and Tetteh Nettey, the former managing director of Mr. Essien's company MC Management Services, are all defendants in Ato Essien's trial for conspiracy to steal and other offences.
The accusations centre on the suspects allegedly stealing from the GH620 million that the Bank of Ghana provided as liquidity support to the bank that has since closed down and was having trouble meeting its obligations to its clients.
The minutes and other documents that were all attached to Fitzgerald Odonkor's witness statement when he opened his defence in the trial on April 7, 2022, were admitted into evidence by the trial court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, a Court of Appeal judge sitting as an additional High Court judge.
Ato Essien's attorney, Baffour Gyau Bonsu Ashia, had protested to the submission of the unsigned minutes, claiming that their acceptance may harm his client's defence.
He subsequently submitted an appeal against the ruling along with a request for a suspension of the proceedings until the appeal's outcome. The trial court rejected his request for a stay of the proceedings, and he renewed it to the Court of Appeal, where it was also denied.
The appeal against the use of the board's unsigned minutes as evidence was likewise rejected by the Court of Appeal.
Following that, his attorney submitted an application to the Supreme Court asking for permission to challenge the Court of Appeal's ruling. Marina Appiah Opare, a Chief State Attorney, objected to the motion.
Nothing in the application persuaded the court to allow the accused individual permission to appeal the court's ruling, according to a five-member panel of the court chaired over by Justice Jones Dotse and assisted by Justices Nene Amegatcher, Nii Ashie Kotey, Gertrude Torkornoo, and Yonny Kulendi.
Later, Mr. Ashia withdrew his request for a stay of the action while the first application was being adjudicated, and it was dismissed as withdrawn.
Justice Nene Amegatcher, in contrast, was unimpressed with the manner certain attorneys file interlocutory motions just to thwart the prosecution of offences including money laundering and corruption.
He made allusions to the country's interest in having such matters tried quickly in his argument.