Ghana's attorney general ordered to produce agreement on Gitmo duo

Ghana's Supreme Court Wednesday ordered the Attorney General to produce by July 6 the verbal agreement between Ghana and USA to host two ex-Guantanamo (Gitmo) detainees, local media reported.

This was after Ghana's Attorney General and Minister of Justice Marrieta Brew Appiah-Opong had told the Court that there was no formal or written agreement between Ghana and the U.S. before Khalid Mohammed Salih al-Dhuby and Mahmmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef were accepted into the country.

According to her, there was, however, a diplomatic exchange of notes with no legal backing ahead of the two former Al-Qaida militants being flown into Ghana, reported Kasapa FM, a private radio.

The five-member Supreme Court Justices, presided over by Justice William Atuguba, therefore ordered the Attorney General to produce the verbal agreement between Ghana and the U.S. concerning the two ex-Gitmo detainees.

The order followed a suit filed by Margaret Bamfo, an 86-year-old retired Conference Officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Henry Nana Boakye, a student of Ghana School of Law, at the Supreme Court, seeking to declare that President John Mahama acted unconstitutionally by bringing the duo to Ghana.

In January this year, Foreign Affairs Minister Hanna Serwaa Tetteh announced that Ghana had accepted a plea from the International Criminal Tribunal to provide shelter for two cleared terrorist suspects of Yemeni origin who were detained in Guantanamo Bay prison.

The announcement sparked protests from the citizenry who feared the two former detainees could pose a security threat to Ghana, causing the minister to be hauled before Parliament to give the legislators a briefing. Endit