27 September 2022 :

Cape Coast High Court in the Central Region of Ghana has sentenced a 34-year-old man to death by hanging for murder, Ghana Web reported on 20 September 2022.
Kofi Adjei, popularly known as Chilling committed a crime in Assin Fosu after he stabbed one Kankani to death with scissors during an argument.
The court after the trial found him guilty and consequently sentenced the convict to death by hanging following the Attorney General’s prosecution.
He has since been sent to the Nsawam Minimum Security Prisons.

16 June 2022 :

A 38-year old Ghanaian fetish priest who killed his wife and daughter and sacrificed them to his idols has been sentenced to death, Pulse reported on 3 June 2022.
According to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), the Bolgatanga High Court found Mbawona Tindana guilty of the crime and sentenced him accordingly.
Reports say the convict, who hails from Kulpelga in Tongo in the Talensi district of the Upper East Region, was arrested in 2019 for allegedly killing his 25-year-old wife, Talata Abigail Kurug, and 2-year-old daughter, Nyapoka Mbawona Tindana, and sacrificing them to his gods.
Although he pleaded not guilty to the charges proffered against him, the court presided over by Charles Adjei Wilson, Regional Supervising High Court Judge, convicted him.
The court’s decision was reportedly based on a unanimous decision from a seven-member jury Tindana himself selected, which found him guilty and sentenced him to death.
"Prosecuting Senior State Attorney, Mrs Joyce Debrah said Tindana is a self-acclaimed traditional spiritualist from Kulpeliga in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region and the husband and father to the deceased, 25-year Talata Abigail Kurug and two-year-old Nyapoka Mbawona Tidana."According to Prosecution, Tindana had accused his wife and daughter of being witches.

07 November 2022 :

President Akufo-Addo has joined the campaign to get the death penalty expunged from the country’s laws.
He believes that once Ghana has made a conscious effort not to invoke the death penalty on persons who are sentenced to death, the nation ought to “do the logical thing” by removing it completely from her statute books, something he said was long overdue.
This was when a delegation from Amnesty International (AI) paid a courtesy call on him at the Jubilee House on 4 November 2022 evening with an appeal to the President for the death penalty to be abolished.
President Akufo-Addo, however, raised issues with the applicability of abolishing the death penalty to persons who commit acts of terrorism.
He said it will be important to give consideration to how the abolition of the death penalty would apply to terrorists.
That, he said was because “a lot of people have come to me who in principle support the abolition of the death penalty but whenever the issue of terrorism is raised and the mindless manner in which some of these terrorist groups operate to destroy human life, operations which do not involve killing of one person, but involves the annihilation of villages, of communities, people hesitate about supporting the abolition of the death penalty for such actors.”
He therefore insisted “I think it is important that the education and sensitization is sufficiently well laid to address issues like that.”
“Nevertheless, I think that the principle is one that we should move towards in Ghana. In our case in Ghana, since we have made a conscious decision not to invoke the death penalty, then we should do the logical thing and remove it from our statute books”, he said.
For him, “it’s a different matter if we were using it selectively; we are not using it at all.”
Rather, he indicated that “everybody who is sentenced to death by the courts is automatically commuted to life imprisonment even though their treatment is still somewhat differentiated,”
On his part, Board Chairman of Amnesty International, Francis Nyantakyi, who led the delegation which included the Member of Parliament for Madina, Francis Xavier Sosu said Ghana can attain the abolition of the death penalty by amending the Armed Forces Act, 1960 (Act 105) and the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29).
The two Acts, according to him contain the provisions in Ghana’s statute books that support the application of the death penalty.
He however noted that some progress has been made since AI last raised the issue with President Akufo-Addo in February 2020.
“A private member bill has been introduced in Parliament by Francis Xavier Sosu, MP for Madina and ranking member of Parliament Select Committee on Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs,” Nyantakyi said.
“With your [President Akufo-Addo] support, we hope that Ghana joins our neighbouring countries Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Togo and host of other African countries including Sierra Leone, and Liberia, that have abolished the death penalty,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ghana is yet to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a subsidiary agreement to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is aimed at abolishing the death penalty.”
The Optional Protocol was created on 15 December 1989 and entered into force on 11 July 1991.

24 October 2022 :

Justice Samuel Kwame Adibu Asiedu, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, nominated to the Supreme Court, has advocated the abolition of the Death Penalty. 
Justice Asiedu made the case on 19 October 2022 in Accra at the public sitting of the Appointment Committee of Parliament when he took his turn at the vetting for his approval as a Supreme Court Judge. 
The President, in July this year, nominated for appointment as Supreme Court judges; Justice Asiedu, Justice Barbara Frances Ackah-Yensu, Justice George Kingsley Koomson, Justices of the Court of Appeal, and Justice Ernest Yao Gaewu, Justice of the High Court. 
Mr Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, the Member of Parliament for Madina and Human Rights Lawyer, wanted to know from Mr Asiedu whether he shares the view that the death penalty, which was irreversible, must indeed, be replaced with life sentence. 
Justice Asiedu reiterated that those who advocated against death penalty had done, so from about two or three angles. 
“Life is precious. Life is so fundamental, and that we as human beings cannot create life and so we have no right to take away life. Once life is taken it is irreplaceable,” he said.  He noted that in the judicial system, there was that likelihood that a mistake could have been made; saying “So, a person could have been convicted, when in actual fact he has not committed the crime he is alleged to have committed”.  “And meanwhile if he is put to death and later on evidence comes up to show that the person was innocent, we just cannot bring that person back (to life).  “And so, nobody should be put to death or for that reason, the death penalty must not be made to continue to exist in our statutes books.”  Justice Asiedu said judges were to interpret the law and apply it and as long as that punishment remained in the statutes book, the judge had no alternative but to apply it. 
He said it was a step in the right direction that bills had been initiated to amend the Criminal Procedure Code and the Criminal and Other Offences Act; Act 29 and Act 30.  “I think it is a step in the right direction,” he said. 
Currently about 27 African countries have abolished the death penalty. 
Mr Sosu said there were about 171 persons currently on death rolls in Ghana. 
In 2010, the Government commissioned a Constitution Review Commission, which recommended that the death penalty be replaced with life sentence. 
He said the recommendations were accepted by the Government, and a Government Whitepaper was issued but for over 10 years nothing had been done about it.  He said currently Parliament was considering two bills that sought to replace the death penalty with life sentence for ordinary crimes.  “I say for ordinary crimes because those bills do not seek to touch the Constitution with respect to treason and high treason,” he said.  He said the bills were seeking to amend the Criminal and Other Offences Act, the reason being that almost all the 171 people on the death roll were tried under the Criminal Offences Act.