National chairman of the National Democratic Congress Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo has been charged by the Police CID after a marathon interrogation over a leaked tape in which he is said to have made comments threatening insecurity in the country.
The legal team which has since morning been at the Police CID headquarters in Accra, told 3news.com a while ago Mr Ofosu-Ampofo has been charged with conspiracy to cause harm, threatening harm, rioting and assaulting public officials.
He has been granted a 400,000-cedi police bail with two sureties. He is to report again at the Police CID on Thursday March 7 for further questioning, a member of his legal team Abraham Amaliba told journalists.
This was after his statement was formally taken and placed under arrest.
According to Amaliba, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo insisted during the interrogation that the leaked audiotape in question was doctored, hence declined to answer some questions asked him on it.
Why the charges?
A version of the tape which is about 31 minutes was played to Mr Ofosu-Ampofo at the interrogation and consequently asked if that was his voice but his lawyer said he declined to answer that.
Mr Amaliba claimed Ofosu-Ampofo told the interrogators “he doesn’t want to comment; it is a doctored tape”.
An audiotape said to have been recorded at a meeting of NDC communicators leaked last Wednesday with a voice purported to be that of Mr Ofosu-Ampofo encouraging the party executives to unleash attack on the EC chair, President Akufo-Addo and the chairman of the National Peace Council.
The party issued a statement Thursday state the said audiotape was doctored and accused the government and national security operatives of bugging the party’s headquarters.
The Police CID consequently invited Ofosu-Ampofo for questioning claiming the alleged comments has security implications. The party chair however failed to honour the invitation on Friday claiming he did not receive any formal communication from the Police.
Reports emerged at the weekend that the Police was working to secure a warrant for the arrest of Ofosu-Ampofo but the before that could be done, he reported himself Monday.
Marathon
For 10 hours, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo and his legal team were camped at the Police CID headquarters. Officials of the Police CID were initially said to have engaged in feet-dragging as they gave excuses to delay the interrogation.
NDC supporters who suspected what they claimed to be a deliberate ploy to detain their party chair, started gathering at the Police CID headquarters to push for his release.
By 5:00pm Monday, hundreds of supporters had thronged the place with a lot more still arriving, but the Police were on high alert to quell any untoward act by the crowd.
