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<\/p>\nA Koforidua Circuit Court has found guilty some 29 foreigners who invaded and mined in the Atewa Forest Reserve.<\/p>\n
They, together, are to cough up a little over GHc15 million or serve a three-year jail term.<\/p>\n
The 29 were rounded up on January 26, 2017 by a joint Military Police and Forestry Task-force, led by Palmer Aikins Amponsah, the Forest Range Manager in the Atewa Forest Reserve, where the foreigners had camped and were mining.<\/p>\n
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Presiding judge, Her Honour, Ms Mercy Adei Kotei, convicted three accused Ghanaian accomplices; \u00a0Abdulai Umaru, Zibo Alidu and Haruna Mumuni, with conspiracy to mine without license, and were asked to pay a fine of 2,500 penalty units each (GHc30, 000.00) or in default serve 3 years imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The judge said\u00a0she handed them the\u00a0sentence because the court had no previous criminal records against them.<\/p>\n
![\"atewa-forest-reserve-illegal-miners-1\"](\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/atewa-forest-reserve-illegal-miners-1.jpg\")
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The other 26 accused persons who were all foreigners were convicted of conspiracy to mine without license, and mining without license as against Ghana’s mining laws, and were also asked pay a fine of 50,000 penalty units each (GHC 600,000.00) or in default serve 5 years imprisonment.<\/p>\n
A third count of Trespassing was however dismissed by the court with the judge stating that the prosecution failed to prove that the accused persons indeed trespassed.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Citi News<\/strong>,\u00a0the counsel for the accused persons, Dolla Jabah Mensah, said they were disappointed with the ruling.<\/p>\n He said “I’m obviously disappointed with the judgement because prosecution failed to prove my clients were illegally mining.”<\/p>\n He also said “the sentence is very harsh so we will take our time to study the judgement and advice our clients as to the next step to take.”<\/p>\n Their woes come on the heels of a war the government of Ghana has waged on illegal mining in the country.<\/p>\n![\"atewa-forest-reserve-illegal-miners-5\"](\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/atewa-forest-reserve-illegal-miners-5.jpg\")
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