ACCRA, Ghana: Six Ghanaians, including three soldiers, were convicted and sentenced to death on Wednesday by hanging for their involvement in an alleged plot three years ago to overthrow the government.
The convicts were arrested in 2021 while testing weapons at an old shooting range in Accra, and intelligence telephone taps led to a blacksmith shop, where they ordered the weapons manufactured, according to court documents.
All of them had pleaded not guilty during the trial. Authorities posted heavily armed police units outside the high court for the hearing and sentencing.
The court, however, acquitted an army officer Colonel Samuel Kodzo Gameli, a police chief Benjamin Agordzo, and one other junior military officer, Corporal Seidu Abubakar.
“We give glory to God. He alone has made it happen. They knew it was falsehood. Our God doesn’t fail. I have always been free within my heart and I knew how it was going to end,” a visibly overjoyed police chief Agordzo told the media following his acquittal.
The six, including a gunsmith and a civilian employee of the Ghana Armed Forces, were charged with 2021 treason conspiracy.
Godfred Yeboah Dame, Ghana’s attorney general, led the prosecution and hailed the outcome of the trial.
“It is a significant judgment because the constitution of Ghana as the fundamental law of the country, which has sustained the stability of the nation, frowns seriously upon any attempt to overthrow a government and that is why that offence [treason] is punishable by death,” Dame told the media after the verdict was announced.
According to the court documents, the men were arrested at their base in the capital city of Accra with locally-manufactured guns, AK-47 rifles, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other ammunition.
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The attorney general said the accused belonged to an association called Take Action Ghana (TAG) and had planned to stage demonstrations, apparently to topple the government.
It is the first treason trial in the West African country since 1963 when the first president Dr Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown. Ghana last executed a criminal under the death penalty in 1992 when it returned to constitutional rule.
The ruling comes as Ghana, known for its stable democracy since 1992, faces heightened security while the wider region has seen a spate of coups in recent years.
