By: Barbara Kumah
The Achimota District Court presided over by his worship, Prince Osei Owusu, has granted a motion filed by Ms. Karen Baaba Sam’s lawyers seeking an order to set aside what she says is was an “illegally” obtained arrest warrant against her allegedly procured by her ex-partner, Nana Kwadwo Adjei with the assistance of some elements in the Ghana Police Service.
At the hearing of the motion today, Tuesday, 4 February 2025, lawyers representing Ms Baaba Sam told the magistrate that the warrant of arrest had no basis and the same ought to be rescinded.
The state, represented by a senior state attorney, David Beecham, did not oppose the application. To this end, the magistrate proceeded to set aside the arrest warrant. In effect, Ms Karen Baaba Sam is no longer threatened with arrest and is free to go about her daily activities.
*Background*
The warrant of arrest, dated Monday, 20 January 2025, emerged on social media. It declared Baaba Sam wanted by the District Court in Achimota (Achimota District Court) to assist the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in a case of unlawful child removal.
The Police warrant further states that Ms Baaba Sam is 29 years old, 5 feet and 6 inches tall, fair in complexion, slim in stature, has a tattoo on her right breast, and is a native of Dormaa Ahenkro.
According to the Police, she was believed to be hiding in East Legon, Airport Residential Area, Cantonments, Osu, or Dzorwulu. The warrant was signed by the Superintendent of Police, Joseph Benefo Darkwah.
However, in an affidavit deposed to by Karen Baaba Sam, she indicates that her attention has been drawn to an arrest warrant issued by the Achimota district court for her arrest based on which publications were made in the Daily Graphic on 22 January and splashed in several other newspapers on 23 January 2025, projecting her as a fugitive from justice.
As her first step, Ms Baaba Sam said she caused her lawyer to conduct a search at the Achimota District Court to find out the specific case upon which the arrest warrant was issued. The lawyers found nothing.
To this end, her lawyers wrote to the Daily Graphic to withdraw and apologise for their publication. Ms Baaba Sam further states in her affidavits that within hours of the search, the Registrar of the Achimota District Court telephoned her lawyers to say that he (the Registrar) had made a new discovery on the matter.
He (the Registrar) then went to see Ms Baaba Sam’s lawyers to discuss what he said he had found and then returned to write a letter with an attached affidavit that stated something different from what he stated in search results without producing any order or record of the Achimota District Court that authorized the issue of the warrant or its publication in the Daily Graphic.
Ms Baaba Sam also deposed further as follows: “That the warrant, whether issued by the Court, with respect, was procured through fraud and illegally perpetrated by Detective Inspector Samuel Sakyi appeared in the honorable Court to obtain the warrant against me (Baaba Sam).
“That Detective Inspector Samuel Sakyi’s depositions that the complainant had custody and that I (Baaba Sam) took away my daughter and am refusing to return her are all false.
“That, I (Baaba Sam) am engaged in two cases involving domestic abuse and custody with the complainant, with one pending in the Circuit Court (Child-Friendly Gender-Based Violence Court), Police Headquarters, Accra, and the other pending before the District Court (Family Division), Accra.”
In her affidavits, Ms Baaba Sam states that on 13 December 2024, the District Court made orders for the sharing of the Christmas vacation between her and the complainant (Nana Kwadwo Adjei). Subsequently, the complainant abused the daughter, and Ms Sam applied to both courts. On 23 December 2024, the Circuit Court granted me and my daughter interim protection orders against the complainant.
“The Circuit Court ordered the complainant to appear in court on 14 January 2025 to show cause why the protection order should not be finalized. I (Baaba Sam) picked up my daughter on 29 December 2024 and the complainant was served with the order to appear on 31 December 2024
“On 14 January 2025, I appeared in the Circuit Court with my daughter, but the complainant refused to appear and instead sent his lawyer to tell the Circuit Court judge that he had traveled, even though that was a lie, and that he had been before the District Court without notice to me (Baaba Sam) to obtain orders behind my back.
“The Circuit Court nevertheless granted the complainant another adjournment to 11 February 2025 to show cause, but he has so far refused, and instead, he is misleading the police and other officers he has influenced to harass me with false allegations behind my back,” Ms. Baaba Sam’s affidavit read.
“I (Baaba Sam) am keeping my daughter pursuant to an interim protection order issued by the Circuit Court on 23 December 2024. The alleged complainant challenged the order at the High Court, which resulted in my counter-challenge in the Supreme Court.
“As such, when the said policeman (Detective Inspector Samuel Sakyi) appeared in this Court with the said affidavit representing me as a criminal and fugitive from justice, he was lying and doing Nana Kwadwo Adjei’s bidding only because of bribes he continued to pay to those willing to do his bidding and pervert the course of justice in the dispute between us,” the affidavit further read.
Ms Baaba Sam ends her affidavits by stating that “Kwadwo Adjei is only using this Court and sections of the police to unlawfully advance his personal interests and that the issuance of the warrant and its publication in the Graphic has caused her exceedingly great harm and injury.
“I hereby pray this Court to set aside the warrant and issue consequential orders to bring all those who played any role in it to justice. My daughter is in my lawful custody by virtue of the interim protection order granted me by the Circuit Court, which is still undergoing the lawful appeal and review processes in the appropriate higher courts. This Court should not lend its powers to perpetrate illegality against me (Baaba Sam),” the affidavit concluded.
