Justice Edward Twum abruptly changed the course of events on October 11, 2023, by delaying the hearing until 3 p.m. to rule on Mad. Cecilia Abena Dapaah‘s request for an expedited hearing of the Special Prosecutor’s application for confirmation.
Lawyer Martin Kpebu, a frequent participant on TV3’s weekend political affairs program, was in court for a different matter.
Mr. Martin Kpebu and his clients were waiting outside the courtroom after the judge got up. Attorneys for Mad. Cecilia Dapaah and her husband led by Mrs. Victoria Barth followed the couple as they left the courtroom.
Outside the courthouse, Mrs. Barth approached Mr. Kpebu and struck up a heated conversation with him.
Mrs. Barth disagreed with Mr. Kpebu’s remarks regarding negative media coverage because he is a lawyer and therefore subject to ethical standards.
In response to statements Mr. Martin Kpebu made that she thought were inaccurate and unfair to her client, especially coming from a lawyer, Mrs. Barth was heard yelling at him, “as a lawyer,” “as a lawyer.”
Mad. Dapaah calmly approached Mr. Martin Kpebu and criticized his remarks for being unfair.
She had earlier made gestures toward Mr. Kpebu that appeared to be an attempt to soothe him.
When commenting on legal matters in court, Mr. Kpebu did not disregard Mrs. Barth’s advice to observe the ethical standards expected of a lawyer.
To Mad. Dapaah and others, he made a compelling case that all he was doing was offering a real-time analysis of the circumstance based on the facts at hand, suggesting a sense of fearlessness in his analysis.
Relatedly, in the United States of America, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, a former minister of sanitation, and her associates are the subject of concurrent investigations by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
On Wednesday, the OSP indicated in a post on “X,” formerly Twitter, that “These investigations primarily focus on examining their assets and financial transactions within the United States of America.”
