An Accra High Court has given various sentences to six members of the Western Togoland Restoration Front (WTRF), a secessionist organization in Ghana.
WTRF is part of a splinter organization from the Homeland Study Group Foundation, whose objective is to secede from Ghana. Kwame Tornyeveadzi was sentenced to six years imprisonment on the charge of stealing an AK47 rifle belonging to the Ghana Police at Aveyime in the Volta region on September 25, 2020.
The court earlier found them guilty on the charges and convicted them but deferred their sentences.
The court said it considered the fact that they were first time offenders and the time they had spent in custody. It, however, took a serious view of the charge of stealing and the attacks launched by some of their followers on a police station.
In his plea for mitigation, Counsel for the convicts, Chris Ackumey, prayed the court to deal leniently with his clients because they had been in custody for the past two years, seven months. Mr. Ackumey said the convicts were only desirous in finding the history of where they came from.”
The defense counsel told the court that his clients while in custody, had suffered emotionally, physically, spiritually and had also displayed remorse during the trial. “Given the chance, they would not commit the mess again.
A Senior Attorney, Joshua Sackey, prayed the court to hand down deterrent sentences and fines on the convicts to serve as a warning to other like minded persons.
According to him, the convicts had not shown any remorse. He rejected the assertion by defense counsel that the convicts wanted to learn their history.
The Attorney said evidence before the court proved otherwise.
The National Security Council, based on intelligence, arrested members of the Western Togoland Restoration Front, who on September 25, 2020, blocked roads at Juapong and Sogakope and set fire to two STC buses.
The prosecution said on the same day, the group also attacked the Aveyime and Mepe Police Stations, freed inmates in the cells, locked up policemen on duty, took arms and ammunition from the armory of the police and bolted.
The convicts were arrested for being members of the WTRF and their various roles in the Group’s activities such as attending meetings, contribution of funds and the receipt of funds for running the Organization.