Daily Graphic

The Daily Graphic in a lead story headlined: "4 to die", reports that a special court comprising three High Court judges, yesterday sentenced four persons to death after finding them guilty off treason.

The paper says Alexander Ofei, a technician, Kwame Ofori- Appiah, a cleaner, Sylvester Addai Dwomoh, a teacher and John Boakye, a student nurse, were found guilty of plotting to overthrow the Government of Ghana in 1994. The four were resident in London until their arrival in Ghana. The Graphic says the court presided over by Mr Justice P.K. Owusu-Sekyere, however, acquitted and discharged the fifth accused person, Emmanuel Osei Kofi, a driver, for lack of evidence.

The trial of the five accused persons began on October 28, 1997. The Graphic reports that in discharging Osei Kofi, who wept for joy after the verdict, the court described him as a simple-minded illiterate who happened to be trapped into the group of coup plotters. The paper quoting the prosecution, says the convicts met on several occasions in Lome, Abidjan, Tema and Kwashieman in Accra, in July 1994 to conspire in an attempt to overthrow the government through violent means. Mr Justice Owusu-Sekyere ordered that a total of 1,942,000 cedis and 1,600 pounds sterling, found on the convicts at the time of their arrest, should be paid into government chest while five mobile phones seized from them, be given to the Ghana Police Service. The court, the Graphic says, also directed that a quantity of grenades seized from the convicts be given to the Ghana Armed Forces.