A High Court in Accra will on Monday, January 29, 2024, sum-up the proceedings in the trial of 14 persons accused of brutally lynching the late Major Maxwell Mahama, to guide the seven-member jury to deliver a verdict.
The court, presided over by Justice Mariama Owusu, a Justice of the Supreme Court sitting as an additional High Court judge, is just an hour away from laying the processes and laws that the jury need in order to conclusively determine the fate of the accused who have been charged with conspiracy, abetment and murder.
Patrick Anim-Addo, counsel for two of the accused, has one more hour to conclude his address by convincing the jury to return a not guilty verdict in favour of his clients, if not all the accused persons.
The prosecution has already addressed the jury, hence the presiding judge would take her turn to guide the jury through all the evidence led and all the elements of the charges against the accused persons.
The jury would then retire to the jury room to deliberate on all that transpired in the trial before returning with what could be a life-changing verdict.
The decision does not need to be unanimous as a majority verdict of 6:1 or 5:2 could be enough to lead to a life imprisonment sentence due to the amendment to the Criminal Offences Act that took away the death sentence.
William Baah, the then Assemblyman for the area, is standing trial for abetment of murder while the other 13 are facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder and substantive charge of murder.
They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges and have been in prison custody since the commencement of the trial in 2018.
The other accused persons are Bernard Asamoah, alias Daddy, Kofi Nyame aka Abortion, Charles Kwaning aka Akwasi Boah, Kwame Tuffour, Joseph Appiah Kubi, Michael Anim and Bismarck Donkor, John Bosie, Akwasi Asante, Emmanuel Badu, Bismarck Abanga and Kwadwo Anima.
The Office of the Attorney General on May 16, 2022, closed its case in the trial of the 14 persons who allegedly lynched the late Major Maxwell Mahama at New Obuasi in the Central Region in 2017.
The prosecution during the presentation of its case called 14 witnesses who gave various accounts of what happened on the day and what they witnessed.
Frances Mullen Ansah, a Chief State Attorney during one of the proceedings led the case investigator in evidence when the court played the horrifying videos which captured the accused persons lynching the deceased.
Eleven of the accused persons opened their defence and denied the charges against them while three; Kofi Nyame, Bismarck Abanga and Kwadwo Anima, waived their rights to mount a defence.
Charles Kwaning during his defence denied attacking the deceased and said he was rather trying to rescue him from the angry mob.
Brief Facts
The facts, presented by the prosecution, were that Major Mahama was the commander of a military detachment stationed at Diaso in the Upper Denkyira West District of the Central Region to check illegal mining activities.
At 8am on May 29, 2017, Major Mahama, wearing civilian clothes but with his sidearm, left his detachment base for a 20-kilometre jogging.
At 9:25 a.m., the military officer got to the outskirts of Denkyira Obuasi, where a number of women were selling foodstuffs by the roadside.
He stopped to interact with the women and even bought some snails, which he left in their custody to be taken up on his return from jogging.
While he was taking out money from his pocket to pay for the snails, the woman from whom he had bought the snails and a few others saw his sidearm tucked to his waist.
Soon after he left, one of the women telephoned the assembly member for Denkyira Obuasi to report what they had seen.
“Without verifying the information, the assembly member mobilised the accused persons and others, some now at large, to attack the military officer,” the prosecution stated.
It added that the mob met Major Mahama near the Denkyira Obuasi cemetery and, without giving him the opportunity to explain and identify himself, “attacked him with implements such as clubs, cement blocks and machetes, killed him and burnt a portion of his body”.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak