Former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng has given a blow-by-blow account on how he was arrested after voluntarily honouring an invitation from the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
He told Media General‘s Alfred Ocansey in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, June 7 that he found the arrest on Tuesday, May 16 “strange”, especially given the circumstances prior to its effect.
“We waited at the lobby down there [and] that was my first time in that building,” he narrated to Alfred Ocansey.
“We got there around 10 o’clock, waiting for my lawyer. When he came, we were taken upstairs to the 7th Floor or so, where the office is and then we were ushered into a room. I was given a chair and opposite me was the Chief Investigator.
“Next to me on my right were my two lawyers and then some officers from that Office.
“So, as soon as I sat down, the Chief Investigator came to me. I was sitting down [then] he put his left hand on my right shoulder and said, ‘Professor, you are under arrest’.
“I found it very strange.”
The renowned heart surgeon further narrated how he was subjected to a two-hour interrogation before being told about signing a bail before he could leave.
“They did not even suggest self-recognisance bail. I needed somebody to bail me. So a friend of mine was down there and he came up and bailed me and so I left and they went with my friend to his house.”
Prof Frimpong-Boateng was bailed at GH¢2 million.
He is expected to report back to the Office for investigations to continue.
Aside helping with investigations into the report he authored on Friday, March 19, 2021, he is also under probe for alleged involvement in illegal mining through close associates and the missing of some excavators.
