The lawyer for embattled ex-Ivorian Minister Kone Katinan has expressed his frustrations at the courts for continuously refusing his client bail.
The Osu District Magistrate Court on Thursday adjourned the case to September 25. This comes after Katinan, a former Ivorian minister during Laurent Gbagbo’s administration, was arrested by Ghanaian security agents and is being held by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI). He was earlier on refused bail by the Human Rights Court on September 5.
The Principal State Attorney Yvonne Attakora on Thursday pleaded for the court to give the State more time to complete the extradition process.
She said “the State needed time to translate all relevant documents into English since the case involved French and English speaking countries.”
She explained that Katinan had only been in custody for the past four weeks and therefore was not unreasonable delay.
The defense lawyer Sogbodzor on his part explained that the reasons being given by the State do not hold and repeated an application for bail.
The presiding judge, Aboagye Tandoh, after studying the arguments of both parties refused the bail application and adjourned the case to allow the State time to process the extradition process. Speaking to Citi News , lawyer Sogbodzor said “I am very disappointed.”
“The State was ordered by the court last week to start the extradition process and we had come to court hoping that this will be done, as it is now this didn’t happened and on that basis we repeated our application for bail because the unreasonable delay should not be suffered by our client.”
He said they were looking at all option available to them and will not rule out going to the Human Rights Courts again.
Katinan was arrested under an August 2012 warrant for alleged economic crimes as budget Minister during three months of crisis and conflict that followed Gbagbo’s refusal to cede power to his rival Alassane Quattara in December 2010.
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