JUDGMENT OF AMISSAH J.A.
The appellant was charged with forgery of a document and stealing. The case of the prosecution was that on the morning of the material day the manager of U.T.C Stores received a telephone call from someone who described himself as Brigadier Ocran who said that he needed some suits because his house had been burgled. The caller said he and Colonel Afrifa had been to the shop earlier and had selected some suits which he, however, left presumably for collection later, as he did not want to carry the parcel away. Now he had found that he needed the suits that very evening because there was a cocktail party at the Castle. He would therefore send his brother down to collect them and would let the manager have the cheque for them within the week. The manager asked the caller to give his brother a note when he came to collect the suits. Later on that afternoon the appellant appeared at the store with the note purporting to be signed by Brigadier Ocran and identifying him as the person sent to collect the parcel. It was a Wednesday afternoon and the store was closed for normal business but the appellant prevailed upon the manager to allow him to collect the suits; he knew their size and where exactly to find them. The manager then asked one of his subordinates to prepare a waybill for the appellant to sign. To this subordinate, the appellant gave his name as Frempong. I need hardly state that both Brigadier (now Major-General) Ocran and Colonel (now Brigadier) Afrifa are members of the National Liberation Council, the government of the day.
At a party at the Castle that evening, the manager ran into Colonel Afrifa who denied having been to the shop. His suspicions being aroused, the manager phoned Brigadier Ocran the next morning. And he denied having any part in the transaction. A report was made immediately to the police. In the early afternoon of the day on which the report was made, the subordinate who prepared the waybill saw the appellant sitting in a car outside another shop and asked him about the suits. The appellant said he was coming to the shop to settle the account. He did not. The police searched his house on the [p.4] third day after the incident and discovered one of the suits taken and two of the jackets of the others in his room. The trousers were with a tailor for alteration; from him they were also collected. From a suit which the appellant alleged he was wearing at the time that he collected the three from U.T.C. he
