GHANA’s former finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta has been placed on Interpol’s red notice list for allegedly using public office for personal gain.
This comes after Ghanaian prosecutors declared him a wanted person as well as a fugitive from justice, as he was outside the country, over his alleged involvement in several corruption cases when he was in government.
A red notice is not an arrest warrant but a request to police worldwide to detain someone pending extradition.
Ofori-Atta, who is said to be out of the country for medical reasons, has not commented on the allegations, but he has said he has been unlawfully treated.
The AFP news agency is quoting Frank Davies, on Ofori-Atta’s legal team, criticising the prosecutor’s approach.
“We submitted medical records in good faith, and the office has chosen to ignore them,” Mr Davies told AFP.
“The special prosecutor is not being sensitive to the issues at hand, especially knowing that Mr Ofori-Atta is unwell and receiving treatment.”
The 65-year-old has been accused of causing financial losses to the state.
The allegations include questions over procurement procedures in the building of a controversial national cathedral, which remains a hole in the ground despite the alleged spending of $58m (£46.6m) of government money.
Ofori-Atta’s lawyers had offered to represent him but the state prosecutor said they could not respond to criminal charges on behalf of their client.
In February, Ofori-Atta appealed to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to remove his name from the wanted list and provided a definite return date in May.
State prosecutor Kissi Agyabeng accepted Ofori-Atta’s assurance and subsequently took his name off the wanted list.
But in March Ofori-Atta filed a lawsuit, claiming unlawful treatment and requesting removal of related content from the OSP’s social media platforms.
