<<Print>>

A client who reported now-suspended private legal practitioner Francis-Xavier Sosu to the General Legal Council (GLC), has said that the lawyer’s plight is a punishment from God.

Francis Agyare, who was wrongfully jailed for 14 years and was later released through the ‘Justice for all programme’ explained that the lawyer wanted to dupe him of some GHS200,000 compensation he got from the state.

“Nobody should blame the General Legal Council (GLC) or me, what is happening now is an act of God. It is God who is punishing this guy,” he said. Mr Agyare admitted to having an agreement with the lawyer for him to have 25% of the compensation since he did not have money at the time to pay for the legal services rendered him by Mr Sosu’s law firm.

He said Mr Sosu, however, cut contact with him, a sitaution which made him report the lawyer to the GLC.

Mr Agyare explained that after signing all the papers, whenever “I go to his office, they’ll tell me he is not there. If I call on him, I will not get him. So one day I called him and he answered but he told me not to make any budget with the money.” According to him, Mr Sosu opened a personal account for himself at the Ghana Commercial Bank and not in his [Agyare’s] name for the money to be deposited in that account.

He indicated that some officials at the Finance Ministry admonished him to open an account for himself which he did at Fidelity Bank.

Later, he was paid a sum of GHS204,000 and decided to pay the agreed GHS50,000 his lawyer charged into Mr Sosu's account.

Mr Agyare said he wanted to withdraw the report he filed against Mr Sosu at the GLC but was told the young lawyer had responded to the report already and refuted the allegations made against him.

Mr Agyare said he was also informed about counter-allegations made by Mr Sosu and, thus, needed to clarify issues since he was advised that Mr Sosu could use those allegations against him in the future.