Officials of the Human Rights Organization, Amnesty International, are expected to visit murder suspect Gregory Afoko tomorrow if they’re permitted by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service.
The visit comes in the wake of a petition submitted to the organization over Mr. Afoko’s continuous detention despite being granted bail by the Criminal Division of an Accra High Court.
Gregory Afoko, a brother to a former National chairman of New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been standing trial since 2015, for allegedly killing Adams Mahama, the then NPP Upper East Regional chairman.
But, Campaign Coordinator at Amnesty International Ghana, Samuel Agbotsey, in an interview with Citi FM said the purpose of their visit is to get firsthand information from the suspect to aid their investigations.
“We are going to the CID to visit Gregory Afoko. We are waiting for the CID boss to grant us that permission. It is part of our investigations to establish a petition that we have received on behalf of Gregory Afoko.
Our visit is just to afford us an opportunity to interact with him, assess his condition and listen to him over the alleged human rights violations per the denial of bail, in the petition that we have received. We proposed 1 pm tomorrow which is Thursday but we are yet to hear from the CID. We will be doing a follow up on our request.â€
In the said petition to Amnesty, Afoko’s lawyers argued that “the abuse of the legal process and bureaucracy to detain and deny Gregory Afoko of his basic human rights, the abuse of the police service towards Gregory Afoko and the total disregard of the Judicial decisions. How all this is done simply to settle political scores within the in-fighting of the NPP using an innocent Proxy – Gregory Afoko.â€
Gregory Afoko was granted the bail in March pending a possible trial at the High Court.
He was admitted to bail in the sum of GHc 500,000 with two sureties, one of who must be justified.
He was also ordered as part of the bail conditions to report himself to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police every two weeks.
Background
Afoko’s trial started in 2016 and was nearing completion after the prosecution and the defence counsel closed their cases.
But on January 28, 2019, the Attorney General filed a nolle prosequi to discontinue the trial following the arrest of another suspect, Asabke Alangdi, who had been on the run.
Afoko and Alangdi were then put before the Accra Central District Court on provisional charges of conspiracy to commit murder and murder.
Afoko’s family has challenged the fairness of the state’s decision to abandon the initial case against him.
They have complained about the state’s move which they maintain is unfair to their relative who has cooperated with the prosecutors.
The family has also threatened to head to the Supreme Court on the matter.
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