Another witness in the trial of illegal mining kingpin, En Huang, aka Aisha Huang, has confirmed that the Chinese national speaks the local Twi language very well.
The witness, Albert Appiah, a farmer who had dealings with Aisha Huang on a couple of occasions after she destroyed his three-acre farmland, confirmed the evidence of another prosecution witness who had told the court that the accused person speaks fluent English and Twi.
Mr. Appiah, who was giving evidence through a Twi interpreter, sought to suggest that Aisha Huang who is facing trial for illegal mining and immigration offences understood everything he was saying in Twi.
The witness during his evidence-in-chief told the court that sometime in 2016, he noticed that a number of Chinese nationals and Ghanaians were mining within Asuogya Nwomaso, near Bepotenten, and Aisha Huang later approached him in the company of her workers and expressed an interest in extending her mining activities to his farmland.
He said Aisha and her workers later came to his farmland to take measurements, and she was “personally holding the machine with which the measurements were taken.”
The witness said he went to his farm the following day and realised the accused person and her workers had uprooted and destroyed a section of his oil palm plantation without the sale price being agreed, a development which infuriated him and he confronted Aisha Huang’s foreman.
Mr. Appiah indicated that he teamed up with another farmer whose farmland was also destroyed by the accused and they went to Kumasi to meet Aisha, and at the end of the day he was paid GH¢24,400 for his three-acre farmland.
It was this assertion that Hope Agboado, counsel for Aisha Huang, sought to discredit by suggesting that “the transaction alleged never happened and it is a figment of your imagination for the purpose of your evidence before this court.”
“I still insist there was a transaction between me and the accused person. It was the money that I collected from her that I used to enroll my third child in the nursing training school. She knows me very well,” Mr. Appiah responded.
It was at this point that Aisha Huang was heard muttering words to the surprise of the presiding judge, Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, who rhetorically asked “so now you understand English?”
The witness responded that she perfectly understood everything he was saying, and that she knows him very well and could not deny it.
Her lawyer then indicated that she had been in the country for well over ten years, and it was possible that she could understand the language. The judge agreed by saying “some of these people are usually good with languages.”
After the lawyer had ended his cross-examination, the judge thanked the witness and asked him to greet Aisha in Twi.
“Good morning, Aisha. It’s me Albert Appiah. I came to your office in Kumasi to collect the money,” the witness said.
Aisha did not reply except to look at the witness scornfully, and his lawyer intervened and the issue was put to rest. The case was adjourned to December 19 for the prosecution