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The legal teams of the mother of the convicted drug peddler, Nayele Ametepe, and the state will make their respective arguments at the Financial and Economic Crimes Division of the Accra High Court on June 1, 2016 to prove whether two houses that the state wants to confiscate actually belong to the convict or not. 

Nayele’s mother, Ms Akua Adubofo, has filed a suit at the court to prevent the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) from confiscating two houses located at East Legon in Accra and Pease in the Ashanti Region that NACOB claims belong to the convict.

In an affidavit supporting her suit, Ms Adubofo claims that the two properties belong to her, not her daughter.
Serve notice

When the case was called on Wednesday, counsel for NACOB, Mr Daniel Amankwah, told the court that it was necessary for the claimant (Nayele’s mother) to serve her daughter notice that she (the mother) was claiming ownership of the two buildings.

According to him, such notice would prevent any legal dispute in the future.

The presiding judge, Mrs Georgina Mensah-Datsa, then asked counsel for Nayele’s mother, Mr Peter Kwesi Dadzie, when he would serve such notice.

Mr Dadzie initially told the court that the claimant did not know Nayele’s address to serve such notice.

“We do not know the respondent’s (Nayele) address,’’ he said.

In response, the judge advised him to ask the applicant (the state) for the address.

Counsel for Nayele’s mother later told the court that it was not necessary for the claimant to serve the notice because the burden of prove lay on the state to establish that the properties it wanted to confiscate actually belonged to Nayele.

“We do not think there is the need for us to serve the respondent. The state is saying that the properties belong to her and we are saying that the properties are for us, for which reason we have filed our claims challenging the state’s assertions. The state should, therefore, prove that the properties actually belong to the respondent,” he said.

Confiscation

NACOB and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EONIC) filed an application on December 3, 2015 praying the court to grant an order for them to confiscate the properties of Nayele, who was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment by a court in the United Kingdom (UK) last year for transporting cocaine into the UK.

The properties  are two houses situated at East Legon and Pease at Kuntunse in the Ashanti Region, an electrical shop known as Night Angels Enterprise, located at Dzorwulu, and six Fidelity Bank accounts with total cash of approximately GH¢23,000.

The court, in a ruling on April 6, 2016, granted the applications and ordered the confiscation of the electrical shop and the six bank accounts, stating that the properties were derived from the proceeds of a crime.

The confiscation order, however, did not include the two houses in dispute due to the suit by Nayele’s mother.