Court of Appeal Acquits William Baah in Major Mahama Case.
William Baah- Photo credit Graphic Online
Accra, Ghana- In an overturn delivered today, the Court of Appeal has acquitted and discharged William Baah, the former Assembly Member for Denkyira Obuasi, effectively overturning his conviction for the abetment of the murder of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama. The unanimous decision marks a dramatic conclusion to the legal battle for the former assemblyman, coming nearly two years after an Accra High Court sentenced him to mandatory life imprisonment.
The three-member panel held that the verdict returned by the jury in the original trial was unreasonable and fundamentally unsupported by the facts. In a detailed judgment, the appellate court identified grave procedural errors and misdirections by the trial judge, Justice Mariama Owusu, who sat as an additional High Court judge during the initial proceedings. The court found that the trial judge had erred in law by relying on the "cautioned statements" of co-accus
Counsel for the acquitted accused person, George Bernard Shaw, has described today’s High Court ruling as a “vindication,” while sharply criticizing Ghana’s criminal justice system for what he says are longstanding structural failings that almost cost his client eight years of wrongful imprisonment.
Speaking to reporters shortly after the judgment, the lawyer recounted the trauma Baah endured throughout nearly a decade of prosecution, calling the experience “overwhelming” and “frightening.” “He has been going to prison for close to eight years… It is overwhelming,” he said. “This has been a very traumatic case, and we want to use it to expose the injustices and the flaws within the criminal justice system.”
The lawyer emphasized that Baah a local assemblyman at the time of the incident, had merely been carrying out his duties when he was instructed by the second prosecution witness to “go and check on this guy approaching town with a gun.”
According to defense counsel, the area had been experiencing a wave of robberies, and Baah’s actions were in line with community safety protocols. “How then would that become an affair of murder, for him to go through all this ordeal?”
He noted that the High Court judges themselves echoed concerns first raised by the defense, particularly that the case should never have proceeded beyond the submission of a no-case stage. “Most of those things we were saying in the High Court… this case should not even have passed half-time. And that is exactly what the judges said.”
The lawyer also revealed emotional and dangerous moments he faced during the case, including being attacked with stones and physically threatened by relatives of the deceased. “When we were coming out, we were pelted with stones, they were saying, ‘defender of the murderer.’”
He described a dramatic scene that unfolded at Criminal Court Three: “The uncle of the late Major Mohammed accosted me openly and tried to shove a gold diamond down my spine.”
He said the incident required the intervention of the judge and added that the ordeal left him “very emotional.”
The lawyer urged Ghanaians, reporters, and criminal justice actors to reflect deeply on this case, stressing that Baah’s acquittal underscores the constitutional importance of presumption of innocence. “If we had assumed that what the prosecution was saying was right, we would still be languishing in jail today.”
He further appealed for broader reforms and fairer treatment for criminal defense lawyers, insisting that the justice system must protect accused persons from “trial by public emotion.”
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