Major Mahama: Trial of suspects begins

Trial of the suspects alleged to have murdered Major Maxwell Mahama begun on Thursday at an Accra High Court with the prosecution calling its first witness Warrant Officer II. Kwasi Sabi.

Mrs. Evelyn Keelson, Chief State Attorney led the witness to give his evidence on what he experienced on that fateful day.

The witness said on May 29, 2017, he was sitting on a veranda of their military quarters at Diaso, when the late Major Mahama told him around 0830 hours that he was going for a walk.

He told the Court that the deceased on that fateful day told him of his decision to change his jogging route and that the late Major usually uses the right turn of the road but this time around decided to use the left turn on the day.

He said the deceased was wearing a track suit and T-shirts with boots when he left.

He said shortly after the deceased left he received a call from the CEO of C and G Mining Company of a shooting incident in the town, he became disturbed and called the late Captain Mahama’s phone many times but his phone was not going through.

WO II Sabi said he then went for a vehicle from the CEO and left the camp with some of his colleagues to look for their leader.

“We then went to the Dunkwa hospital because we were told someone had been shot and taken there,” he said.

He said when they arrived, he asked a nurse where the person who had been shot was and she showed them a body that had been shot in the left neck.

“When I checked, that person was not our leader.”

He said a different nurse then told them an armed robber had also been shot and was at the mortuary so they went to check only to see the deceased, he told the court, “we were shocked to see the late Major Mahama lying naked."

Mr. George Bernard Shaw, a counsel for some of the accused who began his cross-examination sought to find out what the military personnel was doing in the mining town and the witness said they were there to protect the properties of C and G Mining Company.

The late Major Mahama, an Officer of the 5th Infantry Battalion at Burma Camp, was on duty at Dankyira-Obuasi, when on May 29, he was lynched by some residents, who allegedly mistook him for an armed robber because he had a pistol in his back pocket.

The mob ignored his consistent plea that he was an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces.

The case was adjourned to Thursday, May 24 for further cross-examination.