–By Issah Olegor
In a fiery critique laden with accusations of dishonesty and political manipulation, former Special Prosecutor Martin A.B.K. Amidu has lambasted the current Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), led by William Kissi Agyebeng, over its handling of the investigation and attempted extradition of former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.
In a detailed statement, Amidu accused the OSP of abusing its mandate and misleading the Ghanaian public regarding the legal processes surrounding Ofori-Atta’s case.
According to Martin Amidu, “the SP (who is as a public officer accountable to the People of Ghana) was deliberately and dishonestly deceiving Ghanaians about the legitimacy of the decision that went into the declaration against Ken Ofori-Atta.”
Martin Amidu insists that the decision to declare Ofori-Atta a wanted fugitive and seek an INTERPOL Red Notice was not made spontaneously, as the SP suggested during a June 2 media briefing, but was rather “premeditated and taken before 24 January 2025” — even before the former minister had been officially summoned by the OSP.
The former Special Prosecutor further alleged that an arrest warrant had been secretly secured and executed on February 11, 2025, through what he described as a “Rambo-style invasion” of the suspect’s home.
This, he said, proves that the declaration of Ofori-Atta as a fugitive was unlawful and dishonest.
“Without a prior warrant of arrest the OSP could not have lawfully declared Ofori-Atta as a wanted person and a fugitive from justice, which he clearly was not,” Martin Amidu stated.
More troubling, Martin Amidu says, is the SP’s failure to publicly disclose that the arrest warrant had already been secured prior to the media declarations.
“Perjury by the OSP beckons!” he warned, emphasizing that the legal community and the suspect’s lawyers must scrutinize the court records to expose the timeline of events.
Amidu also criticized the SP’s public announcement on February 18 that Ofori-Atta’s name had been removed from the wanted list, arguing that only a court could nullify an arrest warrant.
“It was obvious to me that… the declaration that the OSP had removed the suspect’s name from its Wanted List… was clearly a gargantuan fraud and unpardonable deception perpetrated on the public,” he wrote.
Responding to the SP’s June 1 ultimatum demanding Ofori-Atta appear the next day or be declared wanted again, Amidu cited a public rebuttal from Ofori-Atta’s lawyer, Frank Davies, indicating that the OSP had already been served with medical records explaining the suspect’s absence due to a scheduled surgical procedure in the United States.
“The medical report dated 14 May 2025 and signed by Ahmed Abdalrhim, MD, of the Mayo Clinic… has since been available online after the SP denied… having received it,” Martin Amidu said, dismissing the SP’s denials as false and unethical.
He argued that if the OSP had received the court documents, it was immaterial when it received the same report by direct correspondence.
“Unless the OSP and the SP were persecuting the suspect,” Amidu wrote, “the OSP is deemed to have had notice of the medical records from the date of service.”
Amidu condemned the public shaming of Ofori-Atta’s health condition, which the SP disclosed at the media conference, saying it showed “a lack of professional acumen… or a blatant abuse of power.”
He continued, “Professional decorum required him to have been humble and humane enough to have demanded further and better particulars… before holding the media conference to shamefully disclose a matter bothering on the privacy of the suspect.”
He further accused the SP of lying about the timing of the INTERPOL Red Notice request.
Contrary to the SP’s statement that the Red Notice was submitted 30 minutes before the media briefing on June 2, Martin Amidu argues that such requests take months to process and had clearly been in the works long before that date.
“This statement by the SP… was a barefaced and irredeemable lie,” Amidu said, branding the whole affair “a grand fraud that takes the People of Ghana for granted as idiots.”
Martin Amidu demanded answers from the SP: “Did Kissi Agyebeng nullify the earlier warrant of arrest before he told the public that he had removed the suspect’s name from the OSP’s wanted list?… If not, then he was lying to the People of Ghana.”
He characterized the OSP’s agenda as a premeditated campaign “to humiliate a supposedly former powerful and untouchable Minister of Finance before the international community by placing him on the INTERPOL Red Notice.”
Martin Amidu also raised serious concerns about the national security implications of declaring a former Finance Minister and cabinet member wanted.
“While serving or out of office, such persons ought to be handled with decorum… as they are assets foreign governments cultivate for purposes of their national security interests,” he warned.
