Court orders arrest of Sarah Kwabla

An Accra Circuit Court issued a bench warrant on Thursday for the arrest of Sarah Kwabla, the student charged with conspiracy to extort money from Black Stars captain Asamoah Gyan. The order followed the refusal of the accused, 21, to appear before the court after she had played hide and seek with the police over the invitation. She is being tried alongside three others—Ekow Micah, a musician, Osarfo Anthony, a journalist and Chris Handler, a blogger. According to the prosecution, led by ACP Moses Atibilla, Sarah Kwabla was informed to come to court for the trial but she said she would not do so.

This compelled the trial judge, Ms Afia Agbanu Kumador, to issue the bench warrant for her immediate arrest. Charges Sarah and two others—Osarfo Anthony, 29, and Chris Handler, 24—have been charged for extorting GH¢25,000 from one Samuel Anim Addo by means of threat. One other, Lester Ekow Micah, 43, has also been charged for allegedly abetting the three others to extort the said amount from the complainant. Appearing before the court, the three accused persons denied the offence. Ms Kumador accordingly admitted Anthony and Chris to bail in the sum of GH¢60,000 with three sureties each while Micah was bailed in the sum of GH¢20,000 with one surety. Sitting continues on Sept 29, 2015. The facts of the case are that the complainant is a businessman and the manager of the Asamoah Gyan Foundation. He said Chris is the owner of GHbase website while Sarah is a student resident at Dunkonaah at Kasoa. According to ACP Atibilla, Anthony was an employee of Chris and that in the month of June 2015 an alleged sodomy story which involved the skipper of the Black Stars broke in the Ghanaian media.

The prosecutor stated that Sarah alleged in a publication that Asamoah Gyan had sexual affair and unnatural carnal knowledge of her and she became pregnant. ACP Atibilla indicated that Sarah discussed the issue with Micah and the two met with Anthony and Chris to publish the story on their website to scare Asamoah Gyan to give them the money. He said Anthony and Chris published the story on their site and promised to publish a sex tape involving the two in their subsequent edition.

The prosecutor further told the court that a witness in the case read the story on GHbase.com and quickly alerted Samuel to enable them stop the publication, adding that Samuel contacted the publishers on phone and they threatened to come out with the tape unless a substantial amount was paid or a house was bought to compensate Sarah. ACP Atibilla said the complainant, in a bid to protect the image of his client, asked the publishers to hold on with the publication whilst he thought about the issue. He stated that Anthony and Chris kept threatening to publish the video to defame Asamoah Gyan and called for an urgent payment of the money

As a result, the prosecutor disclosed, Samuel feigned interest to pay and when the publishers were contacted, they, in consultation with Sarah and Micah, charged a fee of GH¢30,000. The senior police officer added that Samuel bargained with the publishers and they settled on GH¢25,000, which the complainant agreed to pay at a meeting at Landing Restaurant in Accra.

ACP Atibilla noted that Samuel, after the arrangement, reported the case to the police. He said on July 29 Samuel met Chris at the restaurant for payment, where an amount of $1000, GH¢6,000 and a cheque of GH¢15,000 were paid to him. The police officer stated that Anthony was arrested after receipt of the money by the police and the others were subsequently arrested.

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