An Accra High Court yesterday denied bail to En Huang also called Aisha Huang, the Chinese national being held in connection with mining without authority.
The Presiding judge, Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, said her reason to deny bail was that Aisha was a foreign national with no financial or social ties in the country and therefore presented a flight risk.
Before Ms Huang’s counsel Nkrabeah Effah Dartey could make oral submissions on the application in court, the presiding judge indicated to him that her September 16, 2022 stance on the bail request remained unchanged.
She added that the severity of the alleged offences and the uncertainty that she may not appear to stand trial informed her decision to reject her bail.
This brings to four the number of times the alleged ‘Galamsey queen’ had been refused bail and remanded after the circuit court rejected her on two occasions.
Aisha Huang is before the court on four charges including entering the country when she had been prohibited from doing so. The rest are undertaking mining operations without a licence, facilitating the participation of persons engaged in mining operations and illegal employment of foreign nationals.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is on remand.
Some of the charges preferred are from a previous case against her in 2017 also related to mining offences which the Attorney General entered a nolle prosequi on December 19, 2018 to discontinue.
Attorney General, Godfred Dame Yeboah who asked for more time to file all documents the state would rely on informed the court that the state would rely on eight witnesses.
“We filed four witness statements on Friday and would like one week to file four more witnesses and the full complements of documents we would rely on. And then another week to start the trial,” he told the court.
Justice Osei Marfo subsequently fixed the next hearing date for October 24, this year, for case management studies and further directions.
Aisha Huang is being tried concurrently at the Circuit Court on similar offences.
BY NANA BENTSI ODURO
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