Afoko trial adjourned to March

The trial of Gregory Afoko, who has been accused of murdering the former Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Adams Mahama, has been adjourned to March 1, 2018 by an Accra high court.

The prosecution called its sixth witness, Awafo Akelesiya, who began giving his evidence-in-chief at the last adjourned date.

It was however, cut short because both the prosecution and the defence raised concerns about the interpreter who was clearly struggling with the English language. This compelled the court to change the interpreter.

There were however, some reservations about the new interpreter as he also seemed to be struggling with soliciting the right responses from the witness.

There were times that the witness, who is said to speak ‘broken English,’ indicated to the court that what he said was not being well interpreted.

It took close to five separate attempts for the interpreter to get the witness to tell the court when a certain meeting purportedly organised at the Central Hotel took place, but to no avail.

This forced the prosecution, led by a senior state attorney, Mathew Amponsah, to tell the court that he would have to move on from that question, although the answer he was seeking was not provided.

In the face of the difficulty in interpretation, the judge called Mr. Amponsah and defence lawyer, Osafo Buaben, into chambers.

The court resumed sitting after about 10 minutes and the presiding judge, Justice L.L. Mensah, adjourned the matter to March 1, 2018 for the prosecution witness to continue with his evidence-in-chief.

Afoko is being tried on the charges of conspiracy to commit murder and murder.

He has pleaded not guilty before the court, which is composed of a seven-member jury.