The Office of the Attorney General has taken steps to extradite the convicted former Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Christine Tamakloe Attionu, back to Ghana to serve a 10-year imprisonment sentence with hard labour.
Following her refusal to return to Ghana for trial after being granted leave to travel to the United States for medical reasons in 2021, a High Court in Accra declared Attionu a fugitive.
On Monday, April 22, the office secured a warrant for her arrest. Collaborating with the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), Ghanaian law enforcement agencies are working to ensure Attionu’s extradition to Ghana to serve her sentence.
During the trial, the judge noted a concern that the state had not attempted to arrest and return Madam Attionu to Ghana for trial. Stella Ohene Appiah, a principal state attorney, responded by stating that it would be more feasible for the state to initiate extradition proceedings once the court made its final pronouncement on the matter and Madam Attionu was convicted.
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Assistant State Attorney representing the Office of the Attorney General, Yvonne Yaache-Adomako, took action by filing a motion requesting the court to issue a warrant for the arrest of the convict, ensuring she serves the imposed prison sentence.
Yaache-Adomako argued that the office had presented compelling grounds in the supporting affidavit for the issuance of the warrant and urged the court to approve it.
Presiding Judge Justice Lydia Osei Marfo granted the application and issued the arrest warrant for Madam Attionu, who is suspected to be hiding in the United States.
A High Court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as an additional High Court judge, convicted and sentenced Madam Attionu to 10 years imprisonment in hard labour for causing financial loss to the state on April 16, 2024.
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An interdicted Operations Manager of the Centre, Daniel Axim, was also sentenced to five (5) years imprisonment for the same offence for his role in the looting of state funds.
The trial judge before sentencing the two observed that people talk about violent crime and how wicked it is, “…but when you have an educated thief, that thief is capable of causing far more havoc than someone with an AK47 is capable of doing.”
The two were found guilty and convicted of all the 78 charges levelled against them by the Office of the Attorney General in 2019 for various criminal acts that led to the state losing a whopping GH¢93,044,134.66