Acid attack: Afoko being tried in wrong court – Lawyer

A former editor of the Daily Graphic newspaper Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh has stated that the main suspect in the murder of the Upper East regional chairman of the NPP, Greggory Afoko, is being tried in a wrong court.

According to him, lawyers of the suspect can easily secure his freedom on technical grounds.

Afoko, brother of the national chairman of the opposition party is standing trial for allegedly bathing Adams Mahama with the acid that eventually led to his death.

He and one other were arrested after the incident and brought to Accra to face trial.

But Ayeboafoh argues that the suspects should have been tried in the jurisdiction where the incident occurred.

“The jurisdiction of a circuit court is limited to the circuit within which it is operating and Gregory has been brought all the way from Bolgatanga and he is put before a circuit court in Accra; it is unlawful and it is unjust”.

“They could have placed him before a high court, they could have gotten him indicted there by a circuit court and then bring him to Accra to be tried by a high court,” he stated.

He continued: “He has not been indicted and if you remember; when Kennedy Agyapong was arrested, they took him to a certain court in Accra and the judge who knew the law said that I am not competent to hear this matter.

“He declined before they took him to the proper court. Because the basis of the law is that if you are tried by a court that doesn’t have the authority to try you, on appeal, you will be acquitted,” the journalist-cum-lawyer stated at a workshop in Accra.