Two lawyers accused of forgery and defrauding

The trial of two lawyers who have been accused of forgery and defrauding by false pretence has been scheduled to start on January 27, 2010.

The date was fixed after the Accra Circuit Court gave reasons for refusing an application to stay proceedings in the matter.

The lawyers, Joseph Kwame Owusu Asamani and Ekow Amua-Sekyi, are alleged to have forged a High Court judgement to deprive the complainant, Mr Samuel Etroo, who was once a client of Amua-Sekyi, of his mining concession. .

Counsel for the two had filed an application for stay of proceedings in the trial on the grounds that cases between parties in the case were pending in different high courts and for that reason it would be prudent for the court to stay proceedings until those matters were determined .

However, the court, presided over by Mrs Justice Adwoa Bartels, dismissed the application on the grounds that parties in the cited cases were different from the parties in her court.

Giving reasons for her decision, the trial judge stated that she had carefully studied the Criminal Procedure Code and other authorities and nowhere was it stated that criminal actions must be stayed for civil actions to proceed.

She said what the applicants sought the court to do was alien to the country's criminal jurisprudence.