An Accra Circuit Court has granted a GH₵150,000.00 bail with two sureties to a 57-year-old building contractor accused of fraud.
Wonder Abochie Kissina was charged on two counts for defrauding by false pretence and forgery.
He pleaded not guilty to both charges levelled against him.
The Court, presided over by Mrs Afia Owusuaa Appiah, ordered that the sureties must be justified. The case has been adjourned to March 13, 2023.
The Prosecution, led by Inspector Cyrus Egbert Conduah, said the complainant, Edward Brown, was the Managing Director of Justcret Ventures, a Real Estate Development Company and lived at James Town, Accra.
The accused Kissina is a Building Contractor and a resident of Ayi Mensah near Accra.
It said the complainant’s company owned about 13.168 acres of land at Ayi Mensah with Land Title Certificate number GA51441.
The Prosecution said the complainant’s company sold two plots of land to Mr Halifax Ansah Addo, a witness in this case, at GHC200,000.00 through the Late Nii Adjetey Mensah Oblie of Ayi Mensah in 2015.
It said the original indenture was regularised but the same was not issued to the witness, because there was an outstanding balance of GHC25,000.00 he had to pay to the complainant’s company.
The Prosecution said the complainant had information from the Lands Commission that the witness, Mr Addo had presented documents purported to have been prepared by him for registration of four plots of land on June 7, 2022.
It said the complainant wrote a letter to the Lands Commission to stop the registration process for the witness and demanded copies of the same upon receiving the information.
The Prosecution said the complainant realised that the date on the original indenture was August 20, 2015, but the one submitted by witness to Lands Commission was dated March 28, 2016.
It said the deponent on the indentures which was the accused, was not known to the company and did not have any authority to sign any document for the company.
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The Prosecution said the complainant found that the indenture bearing March 28, 2016, which was prepared by the accused was forged and not from the company because all their indentures came with a seal and stamp of the company.
It said the complainant reported the matter to the Police on July 14, 2022, and Mr Addo was invited.
The Prosecution said Mr Addo during interrogation stated that the accused sold four plots of land at GHC195,000.00 to him and not two plots in 2016, but refused to issue him documents until he reported the accused [Wonder Abochie Kissina] to Property Fraud Unit at CID Headquarters in 2021 and he was compelled to release the documents.
It said the witness further told the Police that the land documents were given to him by both the late Chief of Ayi Mensah and the accused, who claimed he was representing Justcret Ventures, which he presented for registration at the Lands Commission.
The Prosecution, however, said the witness revealed the accused had issued to him three different land documents for the registration but none of them went through.
It said the Mr Kissina [accused] was invited by the Regional Criminal Investigation Department (CID) /Accra to assist in the investigation on August 24, 2022.
The Prosecution said the accused was arrested on September 12, 2022, and upon interrogation, he admitted the offence but claimed he was a secretary to the late Nii Adjetey Mensah Oblie of Ayi Mensah and had been signing land documents on his behalf.
The accused further stated that, because the chief had died, pressure mounted on him and he mistakenly changed his cousin’s land documents for the witness to register.
The Prosecution said Abraham Ago-Mensah, whom the accused mentioned as a witness, was invited at the Unit on September 16, 2022, and in his statement, admitted that he knew Halifax Ansah Addo had acquired two plots of land from the complainant’s company through his late father.
Mr Ago-Mensah added that the accused had an outstanding balance of GHC25,000.00 to be settled before the land documents were released to him.
