BREAKING NEWS - PRINCESS OCANSEY ACQUITTED AND DISCHARGED OF FALSE HUMAN TRAFFICKING CHARGES ACCRA – April 7, 2014 – Princess Asie Ocansey, has been acquitted and discharged of all human trafficking and false charges of fraud in the case of ‘The Republic vs Naa Asie Ocansey’ involving one Eugenia Mensah Plange. The case was presented to the court by the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the CID, headed by Supt. Patience Quaye, who indicated that it was the US Embassy that sent in a letter to report this said Human Trafficking case in November 2012, though no letter from the US Embassy was tendered. In the ruling by Her Lordship (SGD) Ms. Sedina Agbemava, the circuit court Judge on the case, after clearly defining Section 1 of the Human Trafficking Act, 2005, Act 694 as amended Act 784, read as follows: ‘Having looked at the above definition, I am unable to call upon the accused to open her defense. The prosecution has been unable to lead an iota of evidence leading that a prima facie case has been made out against the accused.’ Princess Ocansey, Woman of God, a Professional Engineer and Migration Expert- is a graduate of the USA Rutgers University College of Engineering ,Wesley Girls High School –Cape Coast and Canadian Institute’s Temporary Foreign Workers Program, in Alberta, Canada. She is the founder of Nekotech Center, Ada – an NGO, and SOS Labour, a duly registered international job placement company, and radio show hostess of: Channels of Blessings’ ‘Travelling Overseas God’s Way’, a weekly radio program . She is the recipient of several local and international awards including the USA Ron Brown International Business Award, recognition from the USA White House for her award winning grassroots humanitarian HIV/AIDS Project –‘Save a Million Lives’ in partnership with the USA Student National Medical Association, which was also awarded an MBE in the UK – Buckingham Palace, for Save a Million Lives -UK, headed by Andy Kabutey Bailey,MBE, the GPA Awards-UK, and co-founded her Orphan support program- Angels of Hope - with USA Actor of True Justice TV program and film star – Steven Seagal and Migration Expert – Veronica Strickland of the USA. This has been over a year long, high profile court case, which went viral before it was sent to court through a newspaper publication, and was on all social media networks and on front pages of some local newspapers, as well as online,TV and radio stations locally and globally. Princess Ocansey was represented by the renowned Lawyer Yonny Kulendi (Kulendi@Law), who told the court on the first day, that the charges were false. ‘Though we celebrate this court ruling for her acquittal and discharge, we are all sad as we ask - how could this happen to this compassionate Woman of God, and how can she now get her reputation back after being globally unfairly treated this way?’ asked Kobina Oboh, an SOS Labour program member now back home from Canada, having worked overseas for two years with Standens. The ruling indicated that the accused person had been charged with an attempt to commit crime to wit human trafficking contrary to Section 18 of the Criminal Offenses Act, Act 29 of 1960 and section 2(1) of the Human Trafficking Act, Act 694 as amended. There was not an iota of evidence to any of the charges of the case of the prosecution, which stated that the accused had fraudulently prepared documents for the purpose of obtaining a visa from the American Embassy for one Eugenia Mensah Plange. The accused was also said to have falsely stated that Eugenia Plange was an Employee of Nekotech, an NGO owned by the accused. All documents tendered showed that Eugenia Mensah Plange worked for PZ Cussons, with forms filled in her own handwriting as well as typed and submitted to the US Embassy and US State Department. There were no documents tendered, where anyone had indicated that Eugenia Mensah Plange worked for Nekotech, per the charges. After 17 appearances in court by the accused, the said complainants, the US Embassy and Eugenia Mensah Plange, did not testify for the prosecution, and never once showed up at the court. Documents tendered by the prosecution showed that the investigator PW1, during his investigation was led to an office in Adenta, called Youth Enhancement International, who has been running an approved US State Department J1 Visa program. A beneficiary of the program was a guest on Princess Ocansey’s radio program, ‘Travelling Overseas God’s Way’, on Sunny Fm, to give her testimony and to invite the public to join the highly reputable program which had transformed her life for the better. Over the years, many young people had gone to the USA on this program and returned with very good testimonies. Youth Enhancement indicated to the Anti-Human Trafficking Dept. that the accused was not part of the visa processing aspect of the application. Her companies, Channels of Blessings and SOS Labour, then a fully licensed job placement agency, were only involved in spiritual and professional development in this specific case. They prepared the candidates for their international job placement interviews with the Employers, who came from the USA to interview the workers for the USA State Department approved program. These trainings focused on integrity, communications and image enhancement for professional development to help the participants to interview successfully. Evidence from the trial shows that the said Eugenia Mensah Plange went for the visa interview through Youth Enhancement International, where she herself misrepresented information in her visa application. Others who attended the interview and passed, are now working legally in the USA. ‘We all know Princess Ocansey is not a human trafficker!’ said Benjamin Obeng a recent graduate of Channels of Blessings’ Integrity College, a pre-requisite for the SOS legal migration program. I had a job through SOS. But for over a year now, as this case was in court, with her license taken, none of us could go, even some members came back home just to come and defend Princess Ocansey.’ said Benjamin Obeng. ‘We, the Pastors Group at Channels of Blessings are grateful to God, to whom we give all the glory!’, said Evangelist Mensah Sarbah, who is the Vice-President of the Channels United Pastors (CUP)- a body of 72 Pastors, whose churches are registered members of Channels of Blessings who are the people trained to go and work overseas . ‘My own daughter, Doreen, was spiritually and professionally trained as a Domestic Worker at Channels of Blessings. Upon completion, she was offered a job as a Domestic Worker in Kuwait, by SOS Labour Ghana Ltd. She then started paying her tithes faithfully from Kuwait. I was so impressed, I introduced other unemployed young ladies in our church into the program, who are all now overseas, working professionally. This is a very respectable and important program for the unemployed in our churches. She has a vision to create jobs for Ghanaians to keep our youth employed to help us build a nation in righteousness, holiness and with integrity,’ said Evangelist Mensah Sarbah. ‘Princess Ocansey’s programs have lifted many redundant as well as jobless men and women out of poverty from Valco to redundant mining workers, they have all been helped by this woman of God, ’said Rev. Arthur, President of CUP ‘Princess Ocansey cares for the poor, the needy, AIDS babies, men and women living with HIV/AIDS, the physically challenged and the orphaned. Even in the midst of her troubles, she was visiting the mentally ill at the Psychiatric hospital in Accra, challenging all of us to help them. I am very sorry and embarrassed about how she has been treated!’ ‘There are many challenges in working overseas legally, said Thomas Avevor who was a beneficiary of the SOS Labour program, where he got an opportunity to work in Kuwait . ‘Human Trafficking is not well understood by many. But Legal Migration, which Princess has been championing for over 10 years, is a major solution for Human Trafficking. We, at SOS, hereby send an urgent petition to the Government to start looking into MOU’s with various countries to open the door for legal migration, as Princess Ocansey helped Ghana to do in May 2010, to stop human trafficking to Libya. Ghanaians would always want to travel, so we are asking for the Government to protect licensed agencies from this kind of unfortunate attack in the future and to sign Labour MOU’s to give us more legal channels to travel overseas and send more money home.’ concluded Thomas. According to the Bank of Ghana, Ghanaians overseas now send home nearly three billion dollars annually in remittances, which is more than foreign exchange from donors. This makes legal migration a very crucial foreign exchange contributor to our economy, apart from job creation, to curb our high rate of youth unemployment. In her final ruling, the Judge, Her Lordship Sedina Agbanava asked: ‘One would wonder what happened to the rest of the group who went with Eugenia for the interview and passed and were issued visas? Were they also victims of human trafficking? The group went through the same procedure so why was the present supposed victim singled out?’ the ruling questioned. The Judge and Lawyer Yonny Kulendi both agree on this one point :This is not a case of human trafficking. In the final statement, the ruling read: ‘I will therefore uphold the submission and acquit and discharge the accused person. She is acquitted and discharged,’ read the ruling by Her Lordship Ms. Sedina Agbenava of the Accra Circuit court 5 for gender based violence. For more info contact: Pastor Arthur: 0243326691 or by email to:bestghanaworkers@gmail
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 11:38:18 +0000
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