Six Ghanaians—three of them were soldiers—were found guilty on Wednesday and given the death by hanging penalty for their alleged roles in a plot to topple the nation’s government three years prior.
According to court documents, the guys were apprehended in 2021 while testing guns at a former Accra shooting range. Intelligence telephone taps traced them to a blacksmith shop, where they placed an order for the weapons to be made.
Throughout the trial, they had all entered not guilty pleas. In anticipation of the trial and sentencing, police stationed heavily armed units outside the high court.
However, the army officer Colonel Samuel Kodzo Gameli, the police chief Benjamin Agordzo, and another junior military officer, Corporal Seidu Abubakar, were all cleared by the high court.
“We give God the honor. It was made possible by him alone. They were aware that was untrue. Our God is not unreliable. “I knew how it was going to end and I have always been free within my heart,” a visibly happy police chief Agordzo told the media after his acquittal.
The six were accused in 2021 of plotting to commit treason, among them a civilian employee of the Ghana Armed Forces and a gunsmith.
Godfred Yeboah Dame, Ghana’s attorney general, who oversaw the prosecution, praised the trial’s conclusion.
“It is a significant judgment because, as the fundamental law of Ghana and the reason for the stability of the country, any attempt to overthrow a government is frowned upon seriously, and for that reason, that offence [treason] is punishable by death,” Dame told the media following the trial.
Court records state that the men were apprehended at their base in Accra, the nation’s capital, with AK-47 rifles, additional ammunition, and locally made firearms and IEDs.
According to Dame, the defendants were members of a group named Take Action Ghana (TAG) and had planned protests with the intention of overthrowing the government.
Since the toppling of Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, in 1963, there has not been a treason trial. When Ghana resumed constitutional governance in 1992, the country executed its last criminal.
The new decision is made at a time when the nation of West Africa, which has been recognized for its steady democracy since 1992, is under increased security and a wave of coups have recently occurred in the area.