info@businessghana.com
An Accra Central District court has committed the 14 accused persons allegedly involved in the murder of Major Maxwell Mahama to stand trial at the High Court. The court presided over by Ebenezer Kwaku Ansah said substantial evidence has been adduced against them for the court to commit them to stand trial at the High Court.
They would all reappear at the High Court on February 15, 2018 for trial to commence.
Before the court made its pronouncement, all the accused were asked if they had something to say but they all said they have nothing to say, regarding the outcome of the investigations and the exhibits presented to the court.
Mrs Evelyn Keelson, a Chief State Attorney, told the court during the committal hearing that the State intends to call 15 witnesses to testify in the case, while relying on 52 exhibits including guns, sticks, metal bars, cement blocks, stones, video recordings and pictures of the crime scene among others.
The State had also serve all the accused and their lawyers with the bill of indictment and summary of evidence. Mrs Keelson said, it was on these documents filed and served on December 15, 2017, that the State would rely on to commence the trial.
At the last adjourned date the Court discharged eight out of the 22 people allegedly involved in the murder of case. The eight, Vivian Asahene, Ebenezer Appiah, Solomon Sackey, Kwame Adjei, Yaw Annie, Solomon Kojo Fordjour, Philip Badu and Anthony Amoah were set free following an application by the state to that effect.
Mrs Keelson informed the court that there was no evidence to prosecute the eight.
She, however, said the Attorney- General’s (A-G) Department had served the bill of indictment on the other 14 and was ready to start the committal proceedings, a prelude to the trial at the High Court.
Counsel for the accused persons, Mr Bernard Shaw, however, told the court about his intention to seek for compensation for the eight who were discharged. According to him, though they had been set free they had been traumatised since their arrest in May, 2017.
Major Mahama, an Officer of the 5th Infantry Battalion at the Burma Camp was on duty at Dankyira-Obuasi, when on May 29, he was lynched by some residents, who allegedly mistook him for an armed robber because he had a pistol in his back pocket.
The mob ignored his consistent plea that he was an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces.
