The High Court in Accra has deferred the sentencing of En Huang, popularly known as Aisha Huang, until the trial for all charges levelled against her is completed. Aisha Huang, who is also known as the “Galamsey Queen,” was convicted after changing her plea in the immigration offence she is facing at the High Court to guilty. She had earlier pleaded not guilty to four counts of undertaking a mining operation without a license, facilitating the participation of persons engaged in a mining operation, the illegal employment of foreigners, and entering Ghana while she had been prohibited from entry.
After eight months of trial, Aisha Huang decided to change her plea in the last charge. However, her plea to counts on illegal mining remains not guilty. The Galamsey Queen was arrested in 2022 for re-entering Ghana and engaging in illegal mining despite her deportation in 2018 for a similar offence. The state has presented eleven witnesses, consisting of immigration officers, police officers, and community leaders, to testify against the Galamsey Queen in an attempt to prove the four charges.
Superintendent of Immigration, Divine Ahumah Ocansey, testified as the eleventh witness and revealed that Aisha Huang had entered the country in May 2010 with a thirty-day visitor’s visa and had been travelling in and out of the country until she obtained a dependent permit on November 25, 2010, as the wife of one Anthony Fabian, a Ghanaian. However, most of the documents supporting her application, like the Ghana Passport Biodata pages of Anthony Fabien and the marriage certificate of her alleged marriage to Anthony Fabian, were forged.
Superintendent Ocansey further testified that Aisha Huang was conducting mining operations at Bepotenten where four Chinese males were arrested in 2017. The four Chinese males admitted during interrogation in 2017 to having been employed by Aisha Huang to work on a mining concession and equipment belonging to her. Additionally, Aisha Huang was deported in 2018 but returned to Ghana in 2022, and investigations into her re-entry commenced on September 9, 2022. While Aisha Huang was deported with a passport bearing the name En Huang, she returned with another passport under the name Ruxia Huang.
The prosecution closed its case after the cross-examination of the eleventh witness, and the case has been adjourned to May 25 for a determination of whether the prosecution has proved a prima facie case against the accused. Meanwhile, Aisha Huang and her lawyers are expected to file their submission of no case by May 16 while the prosecution is expected to respond by May 24.
