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Tag: Bureau of Corrections

  • EOCO denied Adu-Boahene, wife’s right to proper legal counsel – Atta Akyea

    EOCO denied Adu-Boahene, wife’s right to proper legal counsel – Atta Akyea

    The legal representative for former National Signals Bureau (NSB) Director-General Kwabena Adu-Boahene, Samuel Atta Akyea, has raised concerns over what he describes as a violation of his client’s rights following his arrest.

    According to Atta Akyea, he was denied the opportunity to privately interrogate Adu-Boahene and his wife, Angela Boateng, after they were taken into custody by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO).

    Providing details of the arrests, he stated that Adu-Boahene was apprehended on Thursday, March 20, while his wife was detained the following day when she voluntarily visited EOCO to check on her husband.

    “Adu-Boahene was picked up on Thursday, March 20, and Angela, his wife, was picked up on Friday when she voluntarily walked to EOCO to go and see her husband. A common thief will run away after her husband has been arrested. She will not walk into harm’s way. They have since been incarcerated,” he said.

    Atta Akyea further revealed that EOCO imposed conditions on his access to his clients, insisting that prosecutors be present during their discussion. He strongly objected to this, citing a breach of lawyer-client confidentiality.

    “They said no, they will not permit me to interrogate them unless they [prosecutors] are seated in the interrogation. So I violated the lawyer-client confidentiality. I told them, No, I will not do that,” he stated.

    He explained that after failing to gain unrestricted access to his clients, he attempted to escalate the matter by meeting EOCO’s leadership. However, while waiting in the conference room, he learned that Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, had publicly accused Adu-Boahene of wrongdoing at a press briefing.

    “While I was in their boss’s conference room, the press conference started, in which the attorney general was crucifying the innocent before they were pronounced guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction,” he remarked.

    The Attorney-General had alleged that Adu-Boahene was involved in the misappropriation of a $7 million cyber defense system contract, which had been diverted into his private account. Adu-Boahene and his wife remain in EOCO custody as investigations continue.

  • Philippine prison head charged in connection with the murder of journalist Mabasa

     A radio personality, Percival Mabasa , a who had criticized officials for corruption, was assassinated in October in Manila.

    Philippine authorities have filed murder charges against the country’s prisons chief and others in connection with the assassination of a prominent radio journalist, which attracted international condemnation.

    The charges were filed on Monday against suspended Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag, prisons security official Ricardo Zulueta, and other key suspects in the October 3 fatal shooting of Percival Mabasa.

    The 63-year-old was killed by two assailants on a motorcycle at the gate of a residential compound in the Las Pinas area of suburban Manila. Mabasa had fiercely criticised Bantag and other officials for alleged corruption and other anomalies.

    A joint statement read at a news conference by top justice, interior and police officials said three gang leaders locked up in the country’s largest prison under Bantag’s control were tapped to look for a gunman to kill Mabasa for a 550,000-peso ($9,400) contract.

    Philippines' Secretary of Interior Benjamin Abalos Jr., (R) gestures with Philippines' Justice Secretary Jesus Remulla (L) during a press conference announcing suspects in the killing of radio journalist Percival Mabasa, at the Department of Justice in Manila on November 7, 2022
    Philippines Secretary of Interior Benjamin Abalos Jr, right, with Philippines’ Justice Secretary Jesus Remulla, left, during a press conference [Ted Aljibe/AFP]

    After the killing, however, the gunman, who was identified by police as Joel Escorial, surrendered in fear after government officials raised a reward for his capture. He then publicly identified an inmate, Jun Villamor, who he said was assigned by detained gang leaders to call him and arrange Mabasa’s killing.

    The gang leaders later killed Villamor inside the prison by suffocating him with a plastic bag allegedly on orders of Bantag and Zulueta, officials said.

    Eugene Javier, a National Bureau of Investigation agent reading the statement said “Bantag had a clear motive to effect the murders … For Percy Lapid, it was the continued exposé by the latter of the issues against the former on his show, Lapid Fire.”

    Bantag has denied any involvement in the killings. He and Zulueta have also been charged for the killing of Villamor. No warrants have been issued yet for their arrests, officials said.

    Mabasa, who used the broadcast name Percy Lapid, is among the latest media workers killed in a Southeast Asian country regarded as among the most dangerous for journalists in the world.

    ‘Good development’

    Jonathan De Santos, chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, welcomed the “good development” in the case, but warned there was a long way to go.

    “As we have seen it takes a decade or more to secure a conviction,” De Santos told AFP news agency.

    Aside from Bantag, Mabasa had also strongly criticised former President Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw a deadly crackdown on illegal drugs. Duterte ended his turbulent six-year term in June.

    Duterte appointed Bantag as Bureau of Corrections chief in 2019 despite pending criminal cases. Bantag had faced charges for a 2016 clash that killed 10 inmates when he was the warden in another detention centre. A court later cleared him.

    Nearly 200 journalists have been killed in the country since 1986, when dictator Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown, according to the journalists’ union. The group led a protest on Tuesday night and called on the government to do more to stop the killings.