The High Court in Accra has discharged Gregory Afoko, the man long accused of playing a role in the 2015 acid attack that killed Adams Mahama, the then Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Afoko had been standing trial alongside Asabke Alangdi, who has already been convicted in connection with the murder. Prosecutors alleged the two conspired to attack Mahama in May 2015, a case that has travelled through the courts for nearly a decade.
But at today’s hearing (December 1), the trial judge, Justice Marie-Louise Simmons, struck out the case and set the accused persons free. The decision followed a streak of more than six consecutive adjournments during which no progress was made.
The court further dissolved the jury after only five of the seven empanelled members reported to sit, leaving it improperly constituted and unable to continue with the trial.
The discharge marks yet another dramatic twist in one of the country’s most closely watched criminal cases.
