07 September 2023 :

An Accra High Court has sentenced to death a 33-year-old man for throwing his two-year-old son into the sea at Akuma Village, Accra, as sacrifice in his bid to become rich, Ghana News Agency reported on August 10, 2023.
This is after a seven-member jury unanimously returned a verdict of guilty on Prince Acquaye, aka Juu, a food vendor, facing a charge of murder.
Ghana’s Parliament repealed the death penalty days ago, but the new law will apply to new cases, not those pending.
The prosecution said Abigail Nyumor, the complainant, was also a food vendor and the convict’s girlfriend.
It said they lived together with the deceased, who was their only son.
The prosecution said in February 2021, the convict told the complainant not to get worried should something happen to their son because they were going to be rich very soon.
The prosecution said on April 20, 2021, at about 12:00 noon, the victim, now deceased, asked the convict to give him money to buy groundnuts.
It said the convict offered the victim GH¢5.00 and the same day, lured the victim to the seaside and threw him into the sea while the complainant was taking a nap.
The prosecution said the complainant was later awoken by some neighbours, who informed her that the convict had thrown the victim into the sea.
It said the convict was arrested and the victim rescued and sent to the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital, but he died the next day.
The prosecution said preliminary investigations indicated that the convict was initiated into occultism and asked to make a sacrifice.
The prosecution said the convict chose his son for the sacrifice by throwing him into the cliff at Akuma Village, which is 33 feet above sea level.

02 May 2023 :

An Accra High Court has sentenced to death Asabke Alandgi, one of two persons accused of the murder of Adams Mahama, a former Upper East Regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Pulse reported on 28 April 2023.
This was after a seven-member jury had unanimously returned a verdict of guilty on him on the charge of conspiracy to murder.
Mahama was murdered on 25 May 2015.
The court presided over by Justice Merley Wood, therefore, convicted Alandgi on the charge of conspiracy to murder.
However, on the charge of murder, the jury returned a 4-3 decision.
The Court said the President of the Republic shall direct where his body would be laid after he had been hanged.
In the case of the second suspect, Gregory Afoko, the court ordered his re-trial.
This is because the jury returned a 4-3 decision both on the charge of murder and conspiracy to murder. 
Under the law, in cases where the decision of the jury is hung, the Court may order a re-trial and the accused could be granted bail or remanded by the Court.
The Court, consequently, remanded Afoko into lawful custody.

26 July 2023 :

Ghana's parliament on July 25, 2023 voted to abolish the death penalty, making the country the latest of several African nations that have moved to repeal capital punishment in recent years.
The decision means that the 176 people currently on death row, including six women, are likely to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
The new bill will amend the state's Criminal Offences Act to substitute life imprisonment for the death penalty, removing the use of capital punishment for crimes including murder, genocide, piracy and smuggling, according to a parliamentary committee report.
The death sentence can still be given for acts of high treason, and campaigners cautioned that the country’s constitution would have to change for a complete removal of the penalty.
Ghana has not carried out an execution since 1993, but courts have continued to hand down death sentences, including seven last year.
The country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, needs to sign the bill into law before it comes into force.
"This is a great advancement of the human rights record of Ghana," said Francis-Xavier Sosu, the parliamentarian who tabled the bill.
"We have conducted research, from the constitutional review to opinion polls, and they all show that majority of Ghanaians want the death penalty removed," he told Reuters.
Ghana is the 29th country to abolish the death penalty in Africa and the 124th globally, according to The Death Penalty Project, a London-based NGO which said it worked alongside partners in Ghana to help get the law changed.
Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic and Zambia are among the latest African states to have ended capital punishment in the last two years.