2 Granted Bail Over Leaked Exam Papers

An Accra Circuit Court has granted a GH�150,000 bail to each of the two people who allegedly leaked this year�s November/December West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) papers. Further, each of the two accused persons, Francis Ahiadome, aka Yesuvi, a technician, and Magnus Adzimah, also known as Rockfeller, a teacher, are to provide for sureties two of whom must be justified. The two, who have pleaded not guilty to 17 counts of stealing, illegal possession of examination papers, conspiracy and leakage of examination papers and other related examination malpractices, are to report to the police once a week. According to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the leakage of the Elective and Core Maths, English Language Paper 2, and Integrated Science has cost the council GH�200,840. At its sitting yesterday when the bail was granted, the court, presided over by Mr. D.E.K Daketsey, began hearing the case with a testimony by the Director of Legal Services of WAEC, Fredrick Selby. He told the court in his evidence in chief that he got to know about the leakage of the examination papers on September 12, following which he instructed that some of the candidates who were in possession of the papers be brought to Accra. Mr Selby said that he interrogated all the 47 candidates brought to him and was able to deduce three leads which led him to a spot in Tema where the leaked questions were photo-copied. He said based on that information, he confiscated the photocopy machine. The candidates also gave him some telephone numbers which he gave to the Police CID to follow up. He told the court that the telephone numbers led to the arrest of Adzimah who was selling some of the leaked question papers at Ahiadome, and was brought Accra while investigations continued there. Mr. Selby said that during the interrogation, Adzimah mentioned Ahiadome as the source of the leaked question papers. Adzimah, according to Mr Selby, confessed to stealing the papers. He said the question papers leaked just four days to the writing of the Mathematics papers, hence, they were rescheduled and the leaked papers reprinted at a cost of over GH�200,000 to WAEC. Mr. Selby indicated that the leakage of the question papers had cost the credibility of the WAEC exams and brought its certificates into ridicule. Hearing continues on October 27. The two accused were first put before the court on September 23, According to the prosecution, during the conduct on November/December 2009, WAEC picked up information and exhibits which indicated that the papers being written on that day had been compromised. A complaint was lodged at the Criminal Investigations Department Headquarters and investigations led to the arrest of a witness who had in his possession, questions on English Language, Core and Elective Maths papers as well as Integrated Science. The prosecution said that during interrogation the witness, who was preparing for the examination, mentioned Adzimah as the one who gave the question papers to him. One September 17, Adzimah was arrested at Ahiadome in the Volta Region when he approached an undercover police officer in an attempt to sell some of the examination questions to her. During interrogation, Adzimah mentioned Ahiadome as his source of supply and he was also arrested to assist the police in further investigations. According to the prosecution, Ahiadome admitted the offence in his statement to the Police and stated that he stole those question papers from the booklet maker during the printing. The prosecution said Ahiadome later copied the questions on different sheets of papers and answered some of them after which he gave them to Adzimah, who also labeled them as Junior High School papers and gave them out to students. The prosecution said investigations revealed that Ahiadome was an employee of KEAT Investment Ghana Limited, a company contracted by WAEC to service their printing machines, and he was one of the technicians who worked on the machine.