Six members of the secessionist campaign group, the Western Togoland Restoration Front (WTRF), have received sentences from the High Court in Accra, Ghana. The WTRF is a splinter group of the Homeland Study Group Foundation and aims to achieve secession from Ghana.
Earlier in March 2023, the Accra High Court had already sentenced five other members of the group to five years of imprisonment with hard labor. These convicts had been involved in attacking police officers, vandalizing a police car and station, as well as blocking roads leading to the Volta Region. Their actions were intended to hinder access to the region by people from other parts of Ghana, as their objective was to secede from the country.
The recent sentences for the six additional members of the group are as follows: Kwame Tornyeveadzi has been sentenced to six years in prison for stealing an AK47 rifle belonging to the Ghana Police in Aveyime, Volta Region, on September 25, 2020. The court, presided over by Mrs. Justice Mary Maame Ekue Yanzuh, has sentenced the other five accomplices to four years each.
The charges against the six individuals included attending meetings of a prohibited group, participating in a campaign for a prohibited organization, making contributions to a prohibited organization, and being members of a prohibited organization. The court found them guilty of these charges and deferred their sentences. However, the court took a serious view of the charge of stealing and the attacks launched by some of their followers on a police station.
During the plea for mitigation, Mr. Chris Ackumey, counsel for the convicts, requested leniency from the court, considering that his clients had already spent two years and seven months in custody. He argued that their intention was to seek knowledge about their history and that they had no intent to violate the law. Ackumey highlighted the emotional, physical, and spiritual suffering endured by the convicts while in custody and expressed their remorse.
On the other hand, Mr. Joshua Sackey, a Senior Attorney representing the Republic, urged the court to impose deterrent sentences and fines on the convicts as a warning to others with similar intentions. Sackey disputed the defense counsel’s assertion that the convicts were seeking knowledge of their history, pointing out that the evidence presented in court contradicted this claim.
The arrests of the WTRF members were carried out by the National Security Council based on intelligence information. On September 25, 2020, the group had blocked roads in Juapong and Sogakope, set fire to two STC buses, and launched attacks on the Aveyime and Mepe Police Stations. They freed inmates, detained policemen, and seized arms and ammunition from the police armory before escaping.
These convicts were apprehended for their membership in the WTRF and their involvement in various activities of the group, including attending meetings, contributing funds, and receiving funds for the organization’s operations.
