It’s wrong for Freddie Blay to defend suspected Chinese illegal miners in court – Obiri Boahen

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A former Deputy General Secretary of the NPP, Nana Obiri Boahen has said the immediate past Chairman of the party, Mr Freddie Blay’s law firm should not have accepted to defend accused persons in the ongoing illegal mining case pending before the Accra High Court.

The decision sparked a public uproar on Tuesday when Lucy Ekeleba Blay, a private legal practitioner, announced in court that she was holding brief for Freddy Blay in the case of the four Chinese accomplices.

Reacting to the development on Accra based Okay FM on Wednesday morning, Nana Obiri Boahen condemned Mr Blay, saying his firm should have allowed other lawyers to stand in for the accused persons.

“The decision was not the best, in my opinion. Otyher lawyers should have been tasked to defend them,” Nana Obiri Boahen argued in Akan.

Justification

But Mr Blay has justified the reason for representing  the four Chinese, Gao Jin Cheng, Lu Qi Jun, Haibin Go and Zhang Zhipeng.

He said although they are being prosecuted by the state, the for accomplices deserve full legal representation in court.

“They came to instruct us and we as professionals, we have sworn an oath to defend our clients to the best of our knowledge and ability and that is exactly what we are doing in accordance with the Constitution of this country,” he said in an interview with Joy FM.

“They are not guilty,” he added. “They’ve been brought before the court, they’ve pleaded not guilty and are being defended.”

In Freddie Blay’s estimation, the four accused persons may have a relationship with Aisha Huang because in 2017 they bought a supermarket from her.

That, in any way, does not suggest they are illegal miners and should not have fair legal representation or defence, Mr Blay stressed.

“Our firm is defending these clients; they’ve told us their story. Maybe the prosecution has been told some other story and that is why we are before the court to defend them,” he stressed.

“We are a firm of lawyers, we take our instructions from our clients based on the story they’ve told us which we have no reason to believe otherwise.”

He clapped back at critics who say his decision to defend the accused persons defeats government’s fight against ‘galamsey’.