Gregory Afoko
THE TRIAL of Gregory Afoko, who is accused of murdering the then Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Adams Mahama, has taken a long adjournment as the Attorney General (AG) Dr. Dominic Ayine is said to be taking another look at the case.
Justice Marie-Louise Simmons, the presiding judge, before adjourning the case yesterday indicated that the information from the prosecution pointed to the fact that the Attorney General was considering what to do about the case.
The prosecution was expected to call its next witness in the retrial following a hung jury in the first trial.
But both the prosecution and the defence lawyers approached the judge after which Justice Simmons adjourned the case to May 30, 2025.
Gregory Afoko was released from prison on March 28, 2025, nearly ten years after he was first remanded.
This was after his two sureties were able to meet all the conditions of the GH¢500,000 bail granted him by a High Court in Accra on February 21, 2025.
Afoko was arrested for allegedly pouring acid on Adams Mahama, leading to his death.
His lawyers have tried since 2015 to secure bail for him, but various courts had turned down the request.
However, on February 21, 2025, a High Court presided over by Justice Marie-Louise Simmons granted him bail in the sum of GH¢500,000 with two sureties who must be justified.
Third Trial
He is currently on a third round of trial after the first trial was truncated in 2019 by the Office of the Attorney General following the arrest of Afoko’s alleged accomplice, Asabke Alangdi, who fled the country after the incident in May 2015.
The second trial ended on April 27, 2023, with a seven-member jury presenting a verdict that shocked many.
The jury by a 4:3 decision found Gregory Afoko not guilty of conspiring to murder the late Adams Mahama, but unanimously found his co-accused, Asabke Alangdi guilty of the same offence.
The jury however, by 4:3 decision found the two accused persons not guilty of the substantive charge of murder, thereby resulting in a hung jury and a retrial by a different jury.
While Afoko is facing a retrial as a result of a hung jury, Asabke Alangdi was sentenced to death by hanging after he was convicted by the court based on the jury’s guilty verdict on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
Part of the prosecution’s facts state that “The deceased returned home around 11:10 p.m. in his pick-up vehicle when the suspects poured the substance suspected to be acid on his head, face and other parts of his body and fled on a motorbike.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak