It is with a heavy heart that I write this week’s edition of this column.
I’m overcome with a mixed bag of emotions, positive as well as negative.
This is because the article is about the trial of those accused of the brutal mob attack on Major Mahama on May 29, 2017, at Denkyira Obuasi.
As I have consistently maintained during my involvement in this case — from the first appearance of the accused, right up to last Thursday, November 20, when the Assemblyman of Denkyira Obuasi was acquitted and discharged on appeal — no one deserves to die in that manner.
We send our condolences to the late soldier’s family and friends.
As alluded to above, I very much wanted to shy away from rekindling matters connected with the Major’s death, but the commentary that the acquittal has engendered demands clarification.
Before delving into the negative commentaries, some blatantly bordering on absurdity, I will explain the Court of Appeal’s judgment.
The full judgment cannot be dissected here, but the salient parts are highlighted here: mis-direction of the jury; improper use of caution statements of two co-accused, which were inconsistent, as well as not corroborated; and above all, no evidence, direct or indirect, supporting the charge of abetment.
While lawyers and citizens steeped in legal knowledge and practice will have no problem understanding the legal basis of the acquittal, a sizeable number of persons, including self-styled legal commentators on social media, are giving wrong interpretations of an otherwise perfectly sound legal judgement.
One blogger could not fathom why someone who had been convicted at the High Court could be freed on appeal.
Another commented: “When Major Mohammed died, I was deeply hurt, but I held onto one hope that this tragic death would finally put an end to illegal mining.
But what do I see today? If the brutal murder of a military officer couldn’t move us to fight this menace, then I honestly don’t know what will.
And today, to add to this pain, one of the suspects who was initially sentenced to life imprisonment has now been discharged after an appeal.
Meanwhile, someone’s father, son and brother are gone forever.
Where is the justice?
Where is the accountability?
How do we ever move forward as a nation if this is how we treat crime?”
Messages
These randomly plucked messages are symptomatic of the general sentiments being wrongly disseminated on social media.
The unacceptable, highly barbaric nature of the Major's death cannot be emphasised enough, but people still seem to be equating being charged and standing trial with being guilty.
They don’t seem to understand how one court can convict a person and another court can say the person is innocent.
They cannot comprehend the notion of miscarriage of justice.
The Assemblyman was charged with abetment, which meant he needed to have done something to instigate, command, assist or encourage the actual killers, either directly or indirectly. None of these featured in the evidence, yet the jury convicted.
In simple terms, the Court of Appeal said that the jury would not have convicted if they had been properly directed by the judge.
Also, the Appeal Court was saying that the statements of two co-accused persons relied on by the judge when directing the jury were improper and full of inconsistencies.
People who commit crimes have to be punished, but not at the expense of innocent people.
Another piece of distorted fact was the reason the military was in Diaso in the first place.
It became clear, both at trial and later through the report of Professor Frimpong Boateng, former Environment Minister and Chair of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining, that the military had been sent there to protect C&G Alaska, a company that was engaged in mining and had been warned by the Minerals Commission about its destruction of the Upper Wasso Forest.
Problem
Given the personal problems I suffered, including insults, attacks and death threats simply for doing my job, which was to uphold justice, it is my earnest hope that the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) and the Ghana Bar Association will use this case as a watershed and embark on a serious national campaign to educate the citizenry on the constitutional rights of fair trial: right to a lawyer, right to be given time and materials to prepare a defence, trial in a reasonable time and, above all, presumption of innocence.
The writer is a lawyer.
E-mail: georgebshaw1@gmail.com
