STATE v. OTCHERE AND OTHERS [1963] 2 GLR 463

 

DIVISION: HIGH COURT (SPECIAL CRIMINAL DIVISION), ACCRA

DATE: 9TH DECEMBER, 1963

BEFORE: KORSAH C.J., VAN LARE AND AKUFO – ADDO JJ.S.C.

CASES REFERRED TO

(1) State v. Teiko Tagoe, High Court (Special Criminal Division), Accra, 17th April, 1963, unreported

(2) R. v. Meyrick (1929) 45 T.L.R. 421; 21 Cr.App.R. 94, C.C.A.

(3) R. v. Mulcahy (1868) L.R. 3 H.L. 306, H.L.

(4) R. v. Brisac (1803) 4 East 164; 102 E. R. 792

(5) R. v. Parnell (1881) 14 Cox C.C. 508

(6) R. v. Murphy (1837) 8 C. &. P. 297; 173 E.R. 502

(7) R. v. Murray [1951] 1 K.B. 391; [1950] 2 All E.R. 925; 34 Cr. App .R. 203, C.C.A.

(8) R. v. Sullivan (1887) 16 Cox C.C. 347

(9) R. v. Harris (1927) 20 Cr.App.R. 144, C.C.A.

(10) R. v. Golder [1960] 1 W.L.R. 1169; [1960] 3 All E.R. 457, C.C.A.

(11) Com. v. Starkweather (1852) 10 Cush. 60

(12) State v. Reed (1874) 62 Me. 146

(13) Sweeney v. Coote [1907] A.C. 221; 76 L.J.P.C. 49; 96 L.T. 748, H.L.

NATURE OF PROCEEDINGS

TRIAL of the defendants before the Special Criminal Division of the High Court, Accra, for the offences of conspiracy to commit treason, treason and misprision of treason. The facts are fully stated in the judgment of Korsah C.J.

COUNSEL

Kwaw Swanzy, Attorney-General, for the prosecution. Aboagye da Costa for the first defendant. Owusu Yaw for the second defendant. Koi Larbi and Harold Darko for the third and fourth defendants. B. J. da Rocha for the fifth defendant.

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JUDGMENT OF KORSAH C J

Korsah C. J. delivered the judgment of the court. The accused persons Robert Benjamin Otchere, Joseph Yaw Manu, Tawia Adamafio, Ako Adjei and Hugh Horatio Crabbe are charged with the following offences, namely—(1) conspiracy to commit treason, contrary to sections 23 (1) and 180 (1) of the Criminal Code, 19601; and (2) treason, contrary to section 180 (3), and the second accused Joseph Yaw Manu alone is charged on a third count with misprision of treason, contrary to section 181 of the Criminal Code, 1960. Particulars of the offence of conspiracy to commit treason charged are that the five persons during the years 1961 and 1962 at Accra in the Republic of Ghana, at Lomé in the Republic of Togo and Abidjan in the Republic of the Ivory Coast did agree together and with Kofi Abrefa Busia, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, Oheneba Kow Richardson, Adam Amandi, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey (now deceased), Ashie Nikoi (now deceased), Edward Lartey Tetteh (now deceased) and others, to commit a crime, namely, treason; the particulars of the offence of treason charged are that the five accused persons, during the months of July and August 1962, at Kulungugu in the Upper Region and at other places in the Republic of Ghana, did endeavour to overthrow the Government of Ghana by unlawful means; and the particulars of the offence of misprision of treason charged are that the second accused person, Joseph Yaw Manu, during the months of April to November 1962 at Accra and Kumasi in the Republic of Ghana, knowing of a treason, namely, an endeavour by R. B. Otchere, (the first accused person), Tawia Adamafio (the third accused person), Ako Adjei (the fourth accused person), Hugh Horatio Cofie Crabbe (the fifth accused person), Kofi Abrefa Busia, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, Oheneba Kow Richardson, Adam Amandi, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey (now deceased), Ashie Nikoi (now deceased) and others, to overthrow the Government of Ghana by unlawful means, did not forthwith reveal it to the President, a Minister or a police officer. The accused persons pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

The definition of conspiracy in our law is contained in section 23 of the Criminal Code, 1960,2 and it is: “(1) If two or more persons agree or act together with a common purpose for or in committing or abetting a crime, whether with or without any previous concert or deliberation, each of them is guilty of conspiracy to commit or abet that crime, as the case may be.

(2) A person within the jurisdiction of the Courts, can be guilty of conspiracy by agreeing with another person who is beyond the jurisdiction, for the commission or abatement of any crime to be committed by them or either of them, or by any other person, either within or beyond the jurisdiction; and for the purposes of this subsection as to a crime to be committed beyond the jurisdiction, ‘crime’ means any act which, if done within the jurisdiction, would be a crime under this Code or under any other enactment.”

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Section 180 (1) provides with regard to treason as follows:

“(1) A person is guilty of treason and shall be liable to suffer death who—

(a) prepares or endeavours to overthrow the Government by unlawful means; or

(b) prepares or endeavours to procure by force any alteration of the law or the policies of the

Government; or

(c) prepares or endeavours to carry out by force any enterprise which usurps the executive power of the State in any matter of both a public and a general nature; or

(d) incites or assists any person to invade Ghana with armed force or unlawfully to subject any part of Ghana to attack by land, sea or air, or assists in the preparation of any such invasion or attack; or

(e) in time of war and with intent to give assistance to the enemy, does any act which is likely to give such assistance.”

In this case the evidence led in support of the charge of treason falls under section 180 (1) (a). With respect to the offence of misprision of treason section 181 of the Criminal Code provides as follows: “Whoever knows of any treason and does not forthwith reveal it to the President, a Minister or a police officer shall be guilty of misprision of treason, and shall be punishable as for a second degree felony.” The overt acts by which the prosecution sought to sustain the charges of conspiracy to commit treason and of treason, fell into five categories: (1) meetings alleged to have been held at Lomé in the Republic of Togo in the years 1961 and 1962 by a number of Ghanaians, members of a political party known as the United Party, among whom were Robert Benjamin Otchere the first accused person and Yaw Manu the second accused person, who were then living in the Republic of Togo and in the Republic of Ivory Coast and at which meetings plans were laid for the overthrow of the Government of Ghana by a resort to the use of arms including hand-grenades and other types of explosive; (2) the maintenance of a liaison by Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, with the said members of the United Party in Lomé; (3) meetings held or contacts made in Accra in the year 1962 by Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person and Cofie Crabbe the fifth accused person with Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, then in Accra, who is alleged to have been the chairman of an association of the said members of the United Party who called themselves “The United Party in exile” and who was the central pivot of the conspiracy, such meetings and contacts having been held or made for the purpose of making the final plans for the consummation of the objects of the conspiracy, i.e., assassination of the President of Ghana by throwing a hand-grenade at his person in Accra or at Kumasi or in the Upper Region of Ghana; (4) allied to and closely related to these three categories of overt acts and arising directly out of them, was the procurement of arms (hand-grenades and pistols) for the purpose of consummating the objects of the conspiracy; (5) the throwing of

[p.471] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 a hand-grenade at the person of the President at Kulungugu in the Upper Region of Ghana on the 1st August, 1962, and subsequent explosions of hand-grenades in various parts of Accra.

The burden which lay upon the prosecution was to establish not only the existence of these five categories of overt acts or any of them that is or are directly material in establishing the charges but also the accused persons’ participation in them. In other words the prosecution would be entitled to a verdict if they proved that the accused persons were connected with or participated in or were privy to any one or more of the five categories of overt acts set out above.

We observe that the law of conspiracy as stated in our Criminal Code embodies the principles of the English law of conspiracy as enunciated in judicial decisions of the English courts (conspiracy in English law being a common law misdemeanour) which have been followed by this court in the case of State v. Teiko Tagoe.3 In the case of R. v. Meyrick,4 Lord Hewart C.J., delivering the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal in England referred to two passages from the judgments in the cases of R. v. Mulcahy5 and R. v. Brisac6 respectively and to the charge to the jury in R. v. Parnell7 as together embodying the English law on the subject. The following are the passages: In R. v. Mulcahy (an Irish case) Willes J. said,8 “A conspiracy consists not merely in the intention of two or more, but in the agreement of two or more to do an unlawful act, or to do a lawful act by unlawful means. So long as such a design rests in intention only, it is not indictable. When two agree to carry it into effect, the very plot is an act in itself, and the act of each of the parties, promise against promise, actus contra actum, capable of being enforced, if lawful, punishable if for a criminal object or for the use of criminal means.”

In R. v. Brisac Grose J. said,9 “conspiracy is a matter of inference, deduced from certain criminal acts of the parties accused, done in pursuance of an apparent criminal purpose in common between them.” In R. v. Parnell (also an Irish case), Fitzgerald J. in his charge to the jury said,10 “It may be that the alleged conspirators have never seen each other, and have never corresponded, one may have never heard the name of the other, and yet by the law they may be parties to the same common criminal agreement. Thus in some of the Fenian cases tried in this country, it frequently happened that one of the conspirators was in America the other in this country, that they had never seen each other, but that there were acts on both sides which led the jury to the inference, and they drew it, that they were engaged in accomplishing the same common object, and, when they had arrived at this conclusion, the acts of one became evidence against the other.”

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The learned Lord Chief Justice after stating that it was undisputed that the law of conspiracy was as stated in the three aforesaid passages went on in another part of his judgment to say11:

“… it was necessary that the prosecution should establish, not indeed that the individuals were in direct communication with each other, or directly consulting together, but that they entered into an agreement with a common design. Such agreements may be made in various ways. There may be one person, to adopt the metaphor of counsel, round whom the rest revolve. The metaphor is the metaphor of the centre of a circle and the circumference. There may be a conspiracy of another kind, where the metaphor would be rather that of a chain; A communicates with B, B with C, C with D, and so on to the end of the list of conspirators. What has to be ascertained is always the same matter: is it true to say, in the words already quoted, that the acts of the accused were done in pursuance of a criminal purpose held in common between them?” We would also like to refer to the following direction of Coleridge J. to the jury in Murphy’s case12: “You have been properly told that this being a charge of conspiracy, if you are of opinion that the acts, though done, were done without common concert and design between these two parties, the present charge cannot be supported. On the other hand, I am bound to tell you, that although the common design is the root of the charge, it is not necessary to prove that these two parties came together and actually agreed in terms to have this common design, and to pursue it by common means, and so to carry it into execution. This is not necessary, because in many cases of the most clearly established conspiracies there are no means of proving any such thing, and neither law nor common sense requires that it should be proved. If you find that these two persons pursued by their acts the same object, often by the same means, one performing one part of an act, and the other another part of the same act, so as to complete it, with a view to the attainment of the object which they were pursuing, you will be at liberty to draw the conclusion that they have been engaged in a conspiracy to effect that object. The question you have to ask yourselves is, ‘Had they this common design, and did they pursue it by these common means—the design being unlawful?’ “ We refer with approval to Glanville William’s comment on the above quoted direction of Coleridge J. in his book Criminal Law (the General Part) (1953 ed.) at page 516:

“Properly read, this direction is a valuable statement of a principle of the law of evidence; but it is capable of dangerous misinterpretation. It must not be understood to mean that the mere fact that two persons independently pursue the same end is enough to convict them of conspiracy. If two burglars should decide independently to burgle the same house on the same night, their independent decisions would not constitute a conspiracy. A conspiracy is not merely a concurrence of wills but a concurrence resulting from agreement. Of course, if the two burglars actually executed their

[p.473] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 respective plans and were both caught in the house, they would be under a heavy suspicion of having acted in concert, and would be fortunate to convince a jury that they had not. The jury must act on reasonable probabilities, and the presumption of agreement from the circumstances is sufficient to throw upon the accused the evidential burden of showing that they did not act in concert. Nevertheless, if the jury are satisfied that the concurrence of the defendants’ acts was accidental, the conspiracy charge must fail, for the concurrence of acts is only evidence of conspiracy, not equivalent to conspiracy. It is submitted that Coleridge J. did not mean anything other than this; his direction meant only that agreement could be implied from acts in the absence of evidence that the concurrence was accidental.”

The case for the prosecution, without at this stage going into the details of the evidence tendered in support of that case, was as follows: In October and November 1961 a number of Ghanaians, members of the said United Party, fled the country and went, some of them to Lomé in the Republic of Togo and others to the Ivory Coast. Among the former was Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, and among the latter were Robert Benjamin Otchere and Joseph Yaw Manu, the first and second accused persons. In December 1961 and January 1962 meetings were held at Lomé at which were present Obetsebi Lamptey described as the chairman of the Executive Committee, Amponsa Dadzie then residing in Lagos in Nigeria also a member of the said Executive Committee, and the first and the second accused who were in the habit of travelling to Lomé from Abidjan in the Ivory Coast to attend these meetings. Present also at these meetings was Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, the leader of the United Party in Ghana, who had fled the country some time before October 1961 and who was living in Europe and travelling to Lomé to attend the said meetings. Also present at, at least, one of the meetings was Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, a member of the ruling Convention People’s Party and a former Minister of Finance in the existing Government of Ghana who fled the country in or about November 1961. Although not a member of the United Party, the prosecution said that he made common cause with the United Party in exile.

At these meetings plans were laid for the overthrow of the Government of Ghana by terrorising the Government with explosions of hand-grenades and other bombs and in the main by assassinating the President of Ghana; arrangements were also made for the procurement of the requisite arms and for the recruitment in Accra and in the Upper Region of Ghana of persons who would undertake the task of exploding the hand-grenades. In May 1962 the said Obetsebi Lamptey arrived in Accra and took up residence in a secluded swish cottage on a cattle farm near a village, Bawaleshie, off the Accra-Dodowa Road and about nine or ten miles from Accra. It was at this cottage that Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, who had meanwhile maintained a liaison with the United Party members in Lomé through Obetsebi Lamptey while he was in Lomé, called on Obetsebi Lamptey in about the end of May 1962 and discussed with him matters relating to the plans laid in Lomé for the overthrow of the Government of Ghana. Later in about the fourth week of June 1962

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Tawia Adamafio the third accused person, Ako Adjei the fourth accused person, and Cofie Crabbe the fifth accused person and three other persons, not before us, called on Obetsebi Lamptey and in the presence of six other persons described as the “N.T. boys” who had been engaged to explode the hand-grenades, delivered to Obetsebi Lamptey eight hand-grenades and the sum of £G200 with instructions to the “N.T. boys” to throw the hand-grenade at the person of the President wherever they could conveniently find him, in Accra or in Kumasi or in the Upper Region of Ghana. The prosecution would have us believe that the hand-grenades were supplied by Edward Lartey Tetteh (deceased), a warrant officer in the Ghana Army and an ammunition expert who for the period December 1961 to 20th March, 1962, was in charge of the Army Ammunition depot in which were stored hand-grenades and other arms and ammunition. On the 27th July, 1962, the President left Accra for Kumasi to attend the annual congress of the Convention People’s Party of which he is the general secretary and proceeded on the 31st July, 1962, to Tenkudugu in the Republic of Upper Volta for a meeting with the President of the Upper Volta. In his entourage were, among other Ministers and high officials of the Convention People’s Party, Tawia Adamafio the third accused person, Ako Adjei the fourth accused person and Cofie Crabbe the fifth accused person. The President left Tenkudugu on the afternoon of the 1st August, 1962, on his return journey back to Ghana. His route went through Kulungugu a village in the Upper Region at which he was not scheduled to stop. When, however, he arrived at Kulungugu the President’s car was hailed to stop by the local district commissioner and some other persons said to be standing in the middle of the road; and a request was made to the President to come down and inspect a guard of honour made up of school children who had gathered to welcome him on his return from the Upper Volta. No sooner had the President stepped out of his car and taken a few steps in the direction of the school children than a loud explosion was heard. It was later found that the explosion was that of a hand-grenade which had been dropped a few yards from the President. Several persons including a schoolchild were killed and many were wounded some of them very seriously. The President himself was wounded.

The prosecution’s case was that the throwing of the hand-grenade at Kulungugu was the consummation of the object of the conspiracy in which all the accused persons together with the other persons named in the indictment and others not named were participants or to which they were privy. The evidence of the prosecution in support of their case is both direct and circumstantial and will be referred to in some detail as and when the case of each of the accused persons comes to be dealt with.

When the accused persons were charged before us on the 9th August, 1963, three of them, namely, Tawia Adamafio the third accused person, Ako Adjei the fourth accused person and Cofie Crabbe the fifth accused person, had, on the evidence, been detained since the 29th August, 1962, under the Preventive Detention Act, 1958,13 and were under such detention

[p.475] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 during the trial. An attempt was made by the defence to identify the grounds upon which these accused persons had been detained with the allegations that formed the basis of the charges against them in this trial, and for that purpose the petitions embodying the grounds for their detention which the three accused persons addressed to the President for their release from detention were put in evidence as exhibit 24 for Tawia Adamafio the third accused person, exhibit 33 for Ako Adjei the fourth accused person and exhibit 1 for Cofie Crabbe the fifth accused person. Needless to say the grounds for their detention as stated in the exhibits aforesaid make no reference whatever to any of the specific allegations that have been the subject of this trial. The evidence before us did not, therefore, warrant any such identification which we do not consider relevant in determining the issues now before us.

From the whole of the evidence adduced before us we are satisfied: (1) that in the years 1961 and 1962 some members of the United Party in exile among whom was Obetsebi Lamptey held meetings in Lomé in the Republic of Togo; (2) that at these meetings the members who attended agreed together to overthrow the Government of Ghana by unlawful means, that is by a resort to violence; (3) that in furtherance of the said agreement Obetsebi Lamptey came to Accra in May 1962; and (4) that the attempted assassination of the President at Kulungugu on the 1st August, 1962, and the exploding of hand-grenades in Accra thereafter were in furtherance of the objects of the agreement aforesaid. Robert Benjamin Otchere, the first accused person, was up to the time of his arrest a member of Parliament representing Amansie West in Ashanti. According to him he left Ghana on the 10th or 11th October, 1961, for the Ivory Coast for fear of being arrested like many other members of the United Party, of which he was a member, who were then being arrested and detained. He lived in various places in the Republic of the Ivory Coast from October 1961 to the 20th July, 1962, when he returned home to Kumasi. He was arrested in Kumasi on the 10th January, 1963, and was charged by the police on the 5th August, 1963, with the offences for which he has been tried by this court. When he appeared before us on the 9th August, 1963, for trial he was serving a sentence of three years’ imprisonment with hard labour imposed upon him in April 1963 by the Accra Circuit Court upon his conviction by that court for attempted suicide while he was in police custody for investigation in connection with the offences with which he is now charged.

The evidence against this accused person was made up mainly of his own confessions contained in a number of written statements he made to the police after his arrest. These statements were duly put in evidence by the prosecution as exhibits A, Al, A2, A3, A4, A7, A8 and A9.

We will now refer to the material contents of these statements. Exhibit A dated the 5th August, 1963, was made when he was charged by the police and after he had been cautioned in the usual manner. It says, “I have already made a cautioned statement to you on the 13th June, 1963, which statement you very Mr. Amaning put down in writing, and

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I signed. I have seen the statement. It is dated the 13th June, 1963. I rely fully on that statement. I have nothing more to say.”

The aforesaid statement of the 13th June, 1963, is exhibit A1 and is in the following terms: “I have signed the written words of caution, and what I want to say simply is that I have already made statements in connection with these cases and charges, although not on caution they were my own voluntary statements dated the 14th January, 1963, the 25th January, 1963, and another one dated on the 25th January, 1963. I fully rely on those statements to which I have appended my signatures. In those statements I made it clear and I still maintain that the plot which brought about the bomb incidents in Accra and Ghana in general and also plans to overthrow the Ghana Government took place in Lomé. The persons who took part according to the letter dated the 1st March, 1962, from Kow Richardson were, Kow Richardson himself, Obetsebi Lamptey, Ashie Nikoi and Adam Amandi. I also maintain that the procurement of explosives and arms to overthrow the Ghana Government was discussed at Lomé by Dr. Busia, Yaw Manu, myself, Kow Richardson, O. Lamptey, Adam Amandi and Ashie Nikoi; but when later I realised that to overthrow the Government by means of violence was not the true weapon, I gave up the idea and came back to Ghana. I have read the above statement which was made in the presence of the Principal Prison Supt. Mr. Pimpim and taken down in writing by Amaning, the Deputy Commissioner of Police and it is correct. I therefore sign my name here.

(Sgd.) R. B. Otchere

13-6-63.”

The aforesaid statements of the 14th January, 1963, the 25th January, 1963, and the 25th January, 1963, are exhibits A2, A3 and A4 respectively.

In exhibit A2 the accused person gives a fairly detailed account of his life history from the date of his birth up to the time (October 1961) he fled to the Ivory Coast where he met a number of refugees from Ghana. He stated that in December 1961 Dr. Busia went to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast and that Adam Amandi and Kow Richardson went to Abidjan from Lomé to meet him. He further stated that Dr. Busia summoned a meeting of all the refugees in the Ivory Coast at which were present, among other persons, the accused person himself, Adam Amandi, Kow Richardson, Kwaku Mensah, B. F. Kusi, Kwaku Bonsu and Addo Kwarbo. At the meeting Dr. Busia told them:

“. . .a Working Committee has been set up at Lomé to see to the return of the refugees to Ghana. The committee comprised of Obetsebi Lamptey as chairman, Ashie Nikoi as treasurer, Richardson as secretary, Rev. Mr. Ametowoblah as a member and Adam Amandi also as a member. He said that he wanted Yaw Manu and myself, based in Abidjan to help. He added that the committee was to plan how best the refugees could be returned to Ghana and how to obtain explosives to be used in Ghana to overthrow the present Ghana Government.”

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He went on to say:

“After the meeting I went to Kwaku Bonsu if he could direct me to get some of the explosives as directed by Dr. Busia. He promised to get me some, hence I wrote to the Working Committee in Lomé that I could get some of the explosives. They wrote back to me requesting me to get explosives, arms and revolvers. I showed the letters to Bonsu, but he could not help me, hence I approached Yaw Manu who told me that he could do everything. So I handed all the letters to him. I did not make any personal effort myself. Later when I asked Yaw Manu, he told me one Lawson at Abidjan could help him. I do not know if any of them had some of the articles wanted by the Working Committee. In April 1962 Kow Richardson requested Yaw Manu and myself to proceed to Lomé. We went and saw Dr. Busia also there. The procurement of explosives and arms was discussed by us. It became evident that it was difficult to get the articles locally, hence Dr. Busia promised to get some for the Working Committee. On the question of people to use the arms and explosives in Ghana, Adam Amandi was detailed to recruit men from Northern Ghana in Bawku area. Obetsebi Lamptey also undertook to get men in Accra. It was also suggested that I should get men from Ouagadougou. Then we dispersed. I tried to go to Ouagadougou, but at Buntuku I found the road impassable, so I returned to Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast …

At a meeting in Lomé in January 1962, Obetsebi Lamptey told us that he was arranging for the taking over of the Government and the Broadcasting Station by his men in Accra and that Dr. Busia must be bold to broadcast on that day that he Busia had taken over the government. The plans of Obetsebi Lamptey were in the hands of Djabanor and Annumu, both of Accra. These two agents were working between Ghana and Lomé for Obetsebi Lamptey. At another meeting in Lomé Dr. Busia explained that he had been in consultations with Gbedemah in Geneva and both agreed to work jointly to foster their plans in the overthrow of Ghana Government and that Gbedemah had great following in Parliament. Dr. Busia said that it was the wish of Gbedemah that the United Party should be dissolved and new Party named ‘Justice Party’ be formed for their new Government. Obetsebi left Lomé for Ghana in May 1962 because he was sure his plans were afoot and that he had come to direct the operation of his agents. The consignment of the arms which I saw was left in Obetsebi Lamptey’s house in Lomé. They were in a sealed box. The arms were transported to Ghana by one Mama, a driver, who lives at Sabon Zongo in Accra. His house I do not know, but I could assist the police by enquiring. When the arms reached Ghana, Obetsebi Lamptey had come to base and I am sure he might be the consignee. Yaw Manu was the courier between Abidjan and Lomé.” In exhibit A3 (the first of the two statements made by the accused person on the 25th January, 1963) he told of his relationship with Yaw Manu the second accused person whom he said he first knew when the second accused person was a civil servant working in the office of the District Commissioner at Bekwai, but got to know him really well “when I took a trip with Dr. Busia around the North shortly before Busia left the country.” He went on to tell of the arrival of Yaw Manu in the Ivory Coast and of how they both lived in the same house for a short while and how afterwards they saw each other frequently. He then stated that while in the Ivory Coast he used to receive letters from “the Working Committee [p.478] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 of the United Party in Lomé and from Dr. Busia” and that he used to discuss these letters with Yaw Manu, the second accused person. Among the “letters I discussed with him [i.e., Yaw Manu]” he continued, “was the letter of March 1962, a copy of which I have re-read. This letter was from Oheneba Kow Richardson. I think I said in my letter of the 24th February, 1962, that I could get some friends in Abidjan to get me some ammunition as discussed at the meeting in Lomé in January, 1962. Among others present at that meeting was Yaw Manu who came with me from Abidjan to Lomé for the meeting. Dr. Busia paid the fares of both of us. Jacob Fordwo had told me he could get any quantity of ammunition which we wanted, but before doing this he needed some money. I accordingly wrote to the Working Committee but I did not mention Fordwo’s name. The agent who could obtain the ammunition was Kwaku Bonsu.” The letter of the 1st March, 1962, mentioned in this statement as being one of the letters the accused person said he discussed with Yaw Manu, had been mentioned in his previous statement exhibit A2. In that statement (i.e., exhibit A2) he said,

“With my connection with the refugees and some of correspondence between us, I understand the following initials to mean ‘A’ as written in the letter dated the 1st March, 1962, to me from Richardson refers to Amandi, ‘K’ in the same letter as referring to Dr. Busia, though normally we call him ‘Prof.’ Initials ‘HG’ in the same letter mean ‘Hand Grenade’.”

This letter was put in evidence by the prosecution as exhibit A5 and is in the following terms: “[SECRET]

1st March, 1962.

Dear R.B.,

I am directed by the Working Committee to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 24th February, 1962, and to say that you should leave no stone unturned to secure for us the arms we need from your end. You have the full mandate of the Committee to place an order with your agents for the following:—

(a) Twelve revolvers;

(b) 100 plastic bombs (the kind in regular use in Algeria);

(c) A good quantity of highly destructive explosives;

(d) 50 incendiary or fire bombs and

(e) Any weapons ‘conducive.’

Cable at once when you are ready to deliver any of the items above and the cost thereof. We are in dire need of revolvers for the protection of the men who will go into action, it is imperative that you should give priority attention to that item.

I am also to emphasise the urgency of the question of recruitment. We have since not heard any news from you in respect of the proposal to recruit some chaps from the Upper Volta. What is required of you is that the boys should be got ready to respond to our call when it is made. Yes Mr. A. has been successful in his recruitment.

We want to gather all our material in this very month of March—we cannot afford to wait any longer—therefore we beg of you to play well your part and assist us to get the necessaries. [p.479] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

As I told you we have had our first consignment of HG from K. I expect to hear from you soon. Yours sincerely.

(Sgd.) Richardson”

The accused person goes on to say in exhibit A3 that:

“When I received the letter of the 1st March, 1962, I attempted to obtain the explosives and revolvers asked for from Jacob Fordwo and Kwaku Bonsu. They went out in search of them but could not get any of them.

When I became aware that I could not get any supply from any source, I handed over the whole of the operations to Yaw Manu.

I was Dr. Busia’s agent in the Ivory Coast and he appointed me to this post when he came there in November 1961, in response to my telegram. It was for this reason that the Working Committee looked to me for a supply of arms.”

Exhibit A4 was mainly about Yaw Manu, the second accused person, how he and Yaw Manu travelled together to Lomé to attend the meetings of the Working Committee of the United Party in exile, and what Yaw Manu told him about the arrangements made for the “operation” in the North when he saw Yaw Manu in Kumasi about two weeks after the Kulungugu incident. After saying that he got to know from Enoch Afriyie, another Ghanaian refugee in the Ivory Coast who paid visits to Ghana, that Yaw Manu had been successful in obtaining some explosives and that this man Enoch Afriyie told him “that the Working Committee would spring a surprise attack on Ghana,” he added: “I knew at the time that there would be a surprise attack, but I did not know the form it would take. Please check this with Yaw Manu and you will discover that I had not the faintest idea.” Again he said in the same statements: “In conclusion I know Yaw Manu as a person together with myself and the Working Committee of the U.P. in exile at Lomé who planned the whole bomb outrages in the country.”

The defence of this accused person was, to begin with, rather confused, and it was not easy to make out from his evidence with any degree of certainty what his defence really was. The defence oscillated, as it were, between a complete denial of having made these statements (at any rate exhibits A, A1, A2 and A3 which he alleged were written by the police who invited him to append his signature thereto) and an admission that he made the statements but at a time or times when he was not fully in possession of his mental faculties. As the trial progressed, however, some measure of clarity emerged from the confusion, and it became apparent that his defence was in the main that he made the statements when he was not in full possession of his mental faculties, and indeed it was this aspect of his defence that his counsel stressed in his final address.

A confession made by an accused person in respect of the crime for which he is tried is admissible against him provided it is affirmatively shown on the part of the prosecution that it was free and voluntary and that it was made without the accused person’s being induced to make it by any promise or favour, or by menaces, or undue terror.

[p.480] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Where counsel for an accused person is instructed that a confession has been obtained in circumstances which violate the fundamental requirements of admissibility, it is counsel’s duty to object to the confession going in evidence and thereby invite an adjudication by the court on the issue of admissibility. In this case counsel for the accused person did not object to these statements going in evidence, but omission so to object does not in our view prevent counsel from cross-examining the relevant witnesses for the prosecution or leading his own evidence to establish circumstances which violate the fundamental requirements of admissibility. If counsel succeeds in establishing such circumstances then, of course, the evidential value or weight of the confession, although already admitted in evidence, will be negligible: R. v Murray.14 Cross-examination by counsel for the first accused person of the police officers called for the prosecution and the accused person’s own evidence were directed to this end.

The accused person stated in his evidence that when he was taken to the Police Headquarters in Accra on the day following his arrival from Kumasi he saw Mr. Bing and other police officers there. Mr. Bing, he alleged, offered him a cup of tea which he at first declined but which he eventually felt obliged to accept as Mr. Bing insisted on his having a cup of tea. He drank the tea and soon after he felt “dizzy” and “funny” and he became “confused” in mind. It was then that Mr. Bing made a request to him to agree to become a witness for the prosecution in a proposed trial of the third, fourth and fifth accused persons and to make statements implicating the three accused persons. When he refused to do so Mr. Bing threatened him saying that he was the “shadow President of Ghana” and he would see him hanged. In spite of these alleged threats the accused person remained resolutely unyielding. It is not easy therefore to appreciate the accused person’s contention that he made the statements because of the promise to be used as a prosecution witness and the consequent threat to see him hanged, for if that were true one would naturally expect to find in the statements references to the third, fourth and fifth accused persons implicating them in the crimes with which they are now charged. The statements contained no such references. Furthermore, assuming the allegations about the cup of tea and of the promise and threats to be true, these factors do not appear to have had any effect on the accused person’s mind or on his moral judgment, for however deleterious the cup of tea or however threatening Mr. Bing’s attitude might have been, the accused person, on his own showing, was able to hold his ground in refusing to agree to become a witness for the prosecution and to implicate the three accused persons. These statements do not appear to us to have been made in consequence of any promise or threat, or of a state of mind induced by the cup of tea. On the subject of his mental condition generally the accused person gave evidence to show that in 1955 he was afflicted with a mental disease the exact nature of which he did not say, and although he was successfully treated for it, the malady kept on recurring periodically. One such period [p.481] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 of recurrence was while he was in police custody, and he referred to the constant stirring of the contents (unknown to him) of a bucket which he alleged was placed in his cell and the persistent noise made by barking dogs which he alleged were chained to the door of his cell as circumstances that aggravated his mental condition already affected by Mr. Bing’s cup of tea to the point of near insanity. It was in such a condition of mind that he made the statements, and the facts appearing therein were, he said, a figment of his imagination and were therefore not true.

The defence pointed to a passage in exhibit A4 (a statement in the accused person’s own handwriting) as supporting the contention that the accused person was mentally deranged. That passage says: “I have mentioned that Fear is the cause which has led me to this disgraceful situation. I should have braced myself to hear of my sentence in this stupid and senseless way I and my associate would like to take to assume political power. I am very much ashamed of myself. I am feeble minded and I am not to be taken seriously and to be relied upon. I promise to help whenever my services are required.” We do not so understand these words which to us appear to be an expression of deep remorse rather than a manifestation of an impaired intellect.

In the course of cross-examining the accused person on the subject of his mental condition the prosecution put in evidence three further statements by the accused person as exhibits A7, A8 and A9. These were statements in the handwriting of the accused person and made apparently not in the presence of any police officer. They contained nothing that had not been said in the other statements (i.e., exhibits A1, A2, A3, and A4) except that the language was a stronger expression of remorse and there was expressed in them a manifest desire to atone for his wicked deeds. They were put in evidence primarily by the prosecution to rebut the suggestion by the accused person that he pleaded guilty to the charge of attempted suicide because he wanted to be convicted in order that he might live the life of a normal convict in prison. The prosecution said that the statements showed that he attempted suicide as the coward’s way out of his predicament, and with that we agree. We do not, however, agree with the prosecution that his plea of guilty to the charge of attempted suicide in itself provided evidence of his guilt in respect of the charges now before us. The plea of guilty established nothing more than the bare fact of his having attempted to take his own life.

We do not believe the story of the cup of tea, the bucket and the barking dogs, and we find it difficult to appreciate how the imagination of a man in the mental condition in which the accused person so vociferously claimed to have been and as described by him could conjure up such a detailed account of his own activities in Lomé and in Abidjan and of the activities of the United Party members in Lomé—an account of facts peculiarly within his own knowledge and which are substantiated in many material respects by actual events.

We are satisfied from the evidence of Mr. Amaning, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, that the statements (exhibits A and A1) were freely

[p.482] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 and voluntarily made by the accused person and that the references in these statements to previous statements of his (exhibits A2, A3 and A4) were made after the accused person had satisfied himself that those statements were the actual statements made by him and acknowledged by him to represent the truth, and that in doing so he was in full possession of all his mental faculties.

Having so found, we see no point in discussing in detail the inconsistencies involved in his evidence in which he alleged that the statements were written out by the police and that he was invited to append his signature thereto without being afforded the opportunity of reading through them. When compelled to admit that the account of his life history appearing in exhibit A2 could not have been known to the police unless he himself told them about it, his explanation was that the police must have culled this account from statements he made to the police at Kumasi upon his arrest and when he was in normal state of mind. These statements (dated the 9th January, 1963) were put in evidence by the prosecution as exhibits A10 and A11 and they contained no account of his life history.

Learned counsel for the accused person submitted that, even if the confessions were adjudged to have been regularly made, corroboration of the facts stated therein was essential for conviction. In support of this submission he quoted a passage from Phipson on Evidence (9th ed.) at page 266 where the learned author says: “A confession duly made and satisfactorily proved is, in general, sufficient to warrant a conviction without corroboration…. But this general rule has been thought not to apply to confessions of murder . . .” Counsel’s argument was that since the offences with which the accused person was charged carried the same penalty, namely, death as the offence of murder the principle of corroboration as stated in the case of murder has an equal application to the accused person in the same manner as though he had been charged with the offence of murder. In support of this argument counsel cited the case of R. v. Sullivan.15 We do not see how this case advances counsel’s proposition. This was an Irish case in which the accused person was charged under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887,16 for unlawfully publishing in the Nation, a newspaper, with a view to promoting the objects of the Irish National League, an illegal association, a notice of the proceedings of that League at a meeting. The question that fell for consideration by the Exchequer Division of Ireland to which the case had gone, upon a case stated by a lower court, was whether an extra-judicial confession (in this case the admissions contained in the notice of the proceedings) made by the accused person was sufficient without independent proof of the commission of the crime to sustain a conviction, and the question was answered in the affirmative.

Counsel appeared to have wholly misunderstood the principle in Phipson to which he made reference. The principle regarding a confession

[p.483] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 in murder, as it runs through the decided cases cited in Phipson, is that where a confession of murder (or manslaughter) is direct and positive, that is where the confession establishes the corpus delicti, the confession is sufficient to sustain a conviction. But where a confession falls short of establishing the corpus delicti then further evidence (i.e., corroborating evidence) is required in proof of the corpus delicti (i.e., proof of death and of death having been caused by a crime) in order to found a good conviction. Counsel’s argument, therefore, rests on an obvious fallacy; the fallacy lies in the drawing of analogy between treason and murder by reference to the penalties carried by these offences instead of by reference to the essential nature of the two offences. However, if corroboration were needed at all one does not have to go far to find it: a hand-grenade was actually exploded at Kulungugu on the 1st August, 1962. However the account of the happenings in Lomé given by the accused person tallies substantially with the account given by Adotei Addo, a prosecution witness. This witness was the secretary of the Accra branch of the United Party; he fled to Lomé in November 1961; he made contact with Obetsebi Lamptey and returned to Ghana in January 1962. This witness said that while in Lomé he saw the first accused person attending a meeting with some other members of the United Party and Gbedemah. When Obetsebi Lamptey arrived in Accra in May 1962 he renewed his contact with him and played an important role in the execution of the objects of the conspiracy. He was convicted in April this year for his participation in the same conspiracy as that with which the accused person is charged, and on his own confession. Adotei Addo confirmed the first accused person’s own story of the recruitment by Amandi, one of the conspirators, of the “N.T. boys” to undertake the throwing of hand-grenades.

We have also the evidence of Mallam Tula who like Adotei Addo was convicted in April this year for his part in this conspiracy. He was an associate of Obetsebi Lamptey, and he told us of the supply of hand-grenades to himself and the “N.T. boys” by Obetsebi Lamptey with instructions to throw the hand-grenades at the person of the President in Accra, or in Kumasi and in the Northern and Upper Regions of Ghana. He himself was given the assignment of throwing a hand-grenade at the President in Kumasi, but he failed to execute the assignment, and he told us that the “N.T. boys” were despatched to the North by Obetsebi Lamptey and that it was one of those “N.T. boys” who actually exploded a hand-grenade at Kulungugu on the 1st August, 1962. Mallam Tula is an accomplice, and we are aware of the danger of acting upon the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. We however believe this evidence on the matters deposed to therein.

We have to emphasise, however, that as far as this piece of Mallam Tula’s evidence is concerned we are not at this stage concerned with how Obetsebi Lamptey came by the hand-grenades. The fact which we accept as true is that some time before the Kulungugu incident Obetsebi Lamptey did have in his possession hand-grenades with which he armed Mallam Tula and the “N.T. boys.”

[p.484] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

In conclusion we are satisfied, as we have already indicated that the statements made by the accused person embodying his confessions were freely and voluntarily made, and we do not accept his denials on oath of the truth of the facts therein stated. We believe these facts to be true in so far as they relate to himself.

Consequently we find that Robert Benjamin Otchere the first accused person then residing at Abidjan in the Republic of the Ivory Coast as a refugee was one of the persons who held several meetings at Lomé in the Republic of Togo in the year 1962. We find further that at these meetings plans were laid for the overthrow of the Government of Ghana by a resort to violence, namely, by the use of hand-grenades and other arms to terrorise the Government of Ghana and in particular to assassinate the President of Ghana. The accused person as one of the conspirators might not have been successful in executing his assignment of procuring arms at Abidjan, he might not have succeeded in recruiting men from Ouagadougou. It did not appear on the evidence that he made any contact with Obetsebi Lamptey when the latter was at Bawaleshie or at Akweteman in 1962; nor that he had any contacts with the “N.T. boys” who actually threw the hand-grenade at Kulungugu, nor that he had any hand in the final arrangements at Accra for the execution of the plans agreed to at Lomé. But his failure to procure arms at Abidjan, his inability to recruit men at Ouagadougou, the fact that he had no contacts with Obetsebi Lamptey in Accra, the fact that he had no contacts with the “N.T. boys” and the fact that he took no part in the final arrangements for executing the plans of the conspirators do not in law exonerate him from full responsibility for what occurred at Kulungugu on the 1st August, 1962, for what occurred at Kulungugu was in furtherance of the objects of the conspiracy as formulated at Lomé, and his responsibility as a conspirator was complete the moment he agreed with the others at Lomé to do what was eventually done. The acts of Obetsebi Lamptey and his agents done in Accra to further the objects of the conspiracy, even though done in the absence of the first accused person and without his knowledge, are in law the acts of the first accused person (Phipson on Evidence (9th ed.), page 98; Taylor on Evidence (12th ed.), Volume 1, page 376, paragraph 590).

We therefore find Robert Benjamin Otchere guilty on both counts of conspiracy to commit treason and treason and convict him accordingly.

Joseph Yaw Manu, the second accused person, was a civil servant in the service of the Government until 1955 when he resigned to become a storekeeper for the United Africa Company Limited at Nandom in the Upper Region of Ghana.

Before being employed in the civil service this accused person had been educated at Adisadel College, a secondary school, at Cape Coast. While at Nandom, he in July 1959, assisted Dr. Busia to get across the Ghana boundary with the Upper Volta to Bobogyiraso in the Upper Volta when Dr. Busia was fleeing the country. This action of his apparently aroused the suspicions of the Government and he was ordered to leave Nandom. Nandom is a town in the Upper Region of Ghana near the boundary between Ghana and the Upper Volta. He left Nandom in January 1960 for

[p.485] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Kumasi where he renewed his employment with the United Africa Company Limited as a storekeeper. He was a member of the United Party, and on the 7th November, 1961, he fled the country to Abidjan because according to him the members of the United Party were being arrested and detained, and he feared that he might be arrested because of the assistance he gave to Dr. Busia to cross the border to Bobogyiraso. He was arrested on the 7th November, 1962, on his way from Abidjan to Lomé by air when his plane landed at the Accra airport.

The case against this accused person was that while he was in the Ivory Coast he traveled frequently to Lomé in the Republic of Togo to attend meetings held by the members of the United Party, then in exile, in that Republic in the years 1961 and 1962; that at these meetings plans were laid for the overthrow of the Government of Ghana by a resort to violence, that is by the use of hand-grenades and other weapons to terrorise the Government of Ghana and in particular to assassinate the President of Ghana; that the plans so laid were eventually executed at Kulungugu in the Upper Region of Ghana when a hand-grenade was thrown at the person of the President on the 1st August, 1962, by a person or persons engaged by Obetsebi Lamptey who was the central pivot of the conspiracy. The President escaped death but was wounded.

The evidence for the prosecution consisted mainly of a number of letters addressed to the President and one S. C. Chinery of Bolga and a statement in writing made to Mr. Kofi Baako, Minister of Defence, by the accused person. There are five letters all of which were put in evidence by the prosecution as exhibits

B4, B5, B6, B7 and B9. Exhibit B4 dated the 16th April, 1962, was addressed to the President and signed by the second accused person who admitted his signature; exhibits B5 and B7 dated the 29th August, 1962, and the 3rd October, 1962, respectively were addressed to the President and purported to have been written by one L. Desimus; exhibit B6 dated the 9th September, 1962, was addressed to the President, and was dated 1962, unsigned; and exhibit B9 dated the 9th September, 1962, was addressed to S. C. Chinery, a civil servant at Bolga in the Upper Region and was unsigned. The written statement to Mr. Kofi Baako was put in evidence as exhibit B3.

The case for the prosecution was that although some of the letters were to have been signed by L. Desimus and others were unsigned they were all in fact written by the second accused person who was the same person as the said Desimus, and that all letters looked at as a whole together with the statement exhibit B3 bore evidence of the second accused person’s active participation in the conspiracy that originated in Lomé in the Republic of Togo.

The second accused person, however, denied being the writer of the letters signed by L. Desimus (exhibits B5 and B7) and of the unsigned letters (exhibits B6 and B9) and admitted being the writer of exhibit B4 only. He said that the said Desimus was a Liberian and an “intelligence officer” employed by the Governments of Togo and Nigeria as a spy

[p.486] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 and he (the second accused person) was in his employment as an agent, and that he was not responsible for the letters which bore the signature of the said Desimus.

Before considering the evidence of the second accused person’s participation in the conspiracy as disclosed by the contents of these letters it becomes necessary to consider in the first place the issue whether the letters signed by L. Desimus and the unsigned ones were as a matter of fact written by the second accused person, or as the prosecution put it whether the said Desimus and the second accused person were one and the same person. In considering this issue we do not have to look beyond the letters themselves as they constitute the only available evidence.

The opening paragraph of exhibit B4, the letter of the 16th April, 1962, addressed to the President by the accused person from Abidjan, reads as follows:

“Dear Kwame,

If you are interested in my bid then send someone you really trust—someone like Kofi Baako or any one you trust. I must warn you that when he comes he must not make his mission known to Mr. Quarshie the Ambassador here. I say someone you trust because most of your high-ups are not trustworthy.” In exhibit B5 the letter of the 29th August, 1962, addressed to the President from Abidjan and signed by L. Desimus appears the following passage:

“When Mr. Baako or messenger comes I will show him documents which will shock you. I mention Mr. Baako because I know he is the most faithful to you. Besides I know him at the St. Augustine College and also at Dunkwa District when he was teaching and also at the Survey School, Accra.” The following passage appears in exhibit B7 the letter dated the 3rd October, 1962, addressed to the President from Abidjan and signed by L. Desimus: “I have told you how your messenger can get to me. I have always stressed on Mr. Kofi Baako because I know him personally.” In exhibit B6 the unsigned letter of the 9th September, 1962, addressed to the President from Abidjan the writer said, inter alia, “I always ask for Kofi Baako because he is the one known to be 100 per cent loyal to you.” The accused person said in his evidence that he saw a copy of this letter, i.e., exhibit B6, in Desimus’s file, meaning thereby that the letter was written by Desimus.

The excerpts from the letters quoted above show unmistakably that the writers of the letters concerned knew Mr. Kofi Baako personally. There was no evidence that the man Desimus, whose other name according to Yaw Manu was George Davis, a Liberian educated in America, was at school in Cape Coast at any time, nor was there any evidence that the said Desimus although said to have lived in Ghana some time ago was at Dunkwa and knew Mr. Kofi Baako there. On the other hand there was evidence that the second accused person was at Adisadel College at Cape Coast from 1939 to 1943 and that Mr. Kofi Baako was at St. Augustine’s College at Cape Coast from 1936 to 1942 and was a school teacher at [p.487] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Dunkwa and did attend the Survey School in Accra. The second accused person admitted that these facts about Mr. Kofi Baako were well known to him. The accused person’s elaborate but incoherent explanation that he gave the information about Mr. Kofi Baako to Desimus his employer, who in writing his letters used the first person singular pronoun in reproducing the information, is not worthy of credence.

The second accused person said in his evidence that apart from the letter of the 16th April, 1962, (exhibit B4) he wrote three more letters to the President between April and October 1962, and he also wrote to Mr. Quarcoopome of the Security Service who was personally known to him. Exhibits B5, B6 and B7 were written to the President during the period named in the evidence of the accused person referred to above. There was no suggestion by the accused person that the letters referred to had not been produced by the prosecution, and although he denied that exhibit B5 was one such letter we are impelled to the conclusion that these letters were exhibits B5, B6 and B7.

We refer further to exhibit B9 an unsigned letter of the 9th September, 1962, addressed to Mr. Smyly Chinery of the Regional Commissioner’s Office, Bolga. The writer, after congratulating Mr. Chinery on his escape from injury at Kulungugu and giving an account of his meeting at a restaurant in Abidjan with “some unknown Northerners” who he said were connected with the Kulungugu incident, went on to say, “They [i.e., the ‘unknown Northerners’] mentioned several of their big men, but those I can remember very well, because I know them myself are Amadu Seidu, Azombo Asibi and H. Hebi. I know Amadu Seidu since 1950 when he was a member of the Standing Committee of the N.T. Council … with my partial Dagbani I could gather all they said … I have taken trouble to write owing to some good you did for me when you were stationed at Salaga.”

Salaga is a town in the Upper Region of Ghana, and Dagbani is one of the languages spoken in that Region. There was no evidence that the man called Desimus ever lived in the Upper or Northern Region of Ghana or that he spoke Dagbani or that he knew Mr. Chinery. It was, however, undisputed that the second accused person as a civil servant and later as a storekeeper for the United Africa Company Limited lived in the Northern and Upper Regions (what used to be called the Northern Territories) of Ghana for a considerable time. Of the two persons, that is, the second accused person and Desimus, the Liberian, the second accused person was the more likely to have known the persons mentioned in this letter, and who were natives of the North, and to have understood the Dagbani language, and to have seen Mr. Chinery, who was his school-mate, at Salaga. We do not believe his story that it was Desimus who gave him particulars about Amadu Seidu. This letter was referred to in a statement made to the police by the accused person on the 14th November, 1962, (put in evidence as exhibit B8) in the following terms: “With reference to my letter dated the 9th September, 1962, to Mr. Chinery the big men for the Kusasi accomplices are Amadu Seidu, Azombo Asibi and H. Hebi.” Later when he was charged on the 6th August, 1962, he made a statement

[p.488] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

(put in evidence as exhibit B) in which he referred to his statement of the 14th November, 1962, (exhibit B8) and said,

“… I have to say that having seen a copy of the statement of the 14th November, 1962, I object to the last paragraph which reads as follows: ‘With reference to my letter.’ This should read ‘with reference to the letter’ and not ‘my letter’.”

This correction was in our view an after-thought made when he realised on the 6th August, 1963, that he would have to face his trial. The excerpts quoted from exhibit B9 point unmistakably to the conclusion that that letter was written by the second accused person.

It follows, therefore, that in our view all the letters, exhibits B4, B5, B6, B7 and B9 were written by Joseph Yaw Manu, the second accused person. In our view it is unnecessary for us to make a finding whether there was an existing human being by the name of Desimus. What we do, however, find is that these letters were all written by Joseph Yaw Manu, the second accused person, and, whether Desimus existed or not as a human being other than the second accused person, the second accused person did use the name Desimus in writing some of these letters to cover up his identity.

We now turn to the letters again to consider what evidence they embody of the second accused person’s participation in the conspiracy which originated at Lomé. In exhibit B4 appears the following passages:

(a) “I happen to have the full facts of a plot which is growing and gaining root.”

(b) “Do you believe that Mr. Gbedemah has been visiting Accra of late and stays with your party high

– up?”

(c) “We have been holding secret meetings at places on Ghana Borders on the North, West and East and at Lomé where the U.P. in exile is also seated.”

(d) “I shall be in Abidjan up to the 27th April. Between the 28th April and 8th May we shall be attending an important meeting. The place has not been made known yet. It is known the last moment to save someone getting to know.”

(e) “I shall give you the ‘D’ day when Gbedemah enters Ghana to execute his plans. But for these information I shall accept £G20,000. The minimum is £G15,000 because I must run away to stay in America or France.”

In exhibit B5 the second accused person wrote:

(a) “I refer to my letter of yesterday’s and to state that you have now hit the right nail. In yesterday’s letter I told you that apart from the United Party, you had two other forces to fight in your own camp . . . You have the Akan clique to face now in your camp. When your man comes as I suggested I shall show him the documents and from what he would see you will know that you are on the path.”

(b) “If later you decide from what you will see from the documents, to avail yourself of my offer and you pay the £G5,000 I shall show you where the ammunition and arms of the Akan and Gbedemah clique are deposited. I shall direct your messenger to a village where you will find them. I will also give you the names of the principal organisers.”

[p.489] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

In exhibit B6 he said, “You have big forces to fight—your own men and those at Lomé.” In exhibit B7 he said,

“Mr. Gbedemah has since the 30th September gone to join hands with the United Party in exile. They are meeting regularly and midnight of Saturday the 6th has been set down as the time they are going to translate their plans into action.”

The facts contained in these letters could be known to the writer either by reason of his participation in the activities to which those facts related or as a result of his having successfully spied on those engaged in the activities. The latter alternative might include information passed on to the writer by a participant in the activities aforesaid. In considering which of those alternatives is, as a matter of fact, the proper conclusion to come to, it is necessary to consider what the defence was.

While he was held in police custody for investigation the second accused person made three statements in writing which were put in evidence by the prosecution as exhibits B1, B8 and B10, and when he was eventually charged on the 6th August, 1963, he made a fourth statement after the usual caution, and this statement was put in evidence by the prosecution as exhibit B.

His evidence which followed essentially the statements he made to the police was briefly that some time in 1961, at a dance in a hotel in Kumasi, he was introduced to a man called Leonard Desimus, whose alias was George Davis, by a Lebanese friend of his called Hallaby. This man Desimus who said he ran a business of an intelligence agency offered him an appointment as an agent in Ghana for the agency. His duty was to send to Desimus reports of happenings in Ghana, and the first report he sent concerned the Sekondi-Takoradi strike in 1961. He did not keep up his correspondence with Desimus after sending him the report on the Sekondi-Takoradi strike, but while he was at Abidjan as a refugee, Desimus came to him in February 1962 and they renewed their connections. Desimus then offered him another job as the “Agency’s” representative at Abidjan. He had then found out that Desimus was a spy working for the Nigerian and Togo Governments. He accepted the appointment and became a member of what he described as “Desimus’ Organisation.” His first assignment, as an agent of this spying organisation, was to spy on the Ghanaian refugees at Abidjan and at Lomé. His case was that he came by the facts set out in his letter of the 16th April, 1962, and in the “confidential” statement he made to Mr. Kofi Baako on the 8th November, 1962 (exhibit B3), by reason of his membership of Desimus’ spying organisation and from his agents in Ghana, and that the facts contained in all the letters, except those relating to Mr. Kofi Baako which he passed on to Desimus, were known to Desimus and not to him personally. He said that when in exhibit B4 he wrote: “We have been holding secret meetings at places, etc.,” the “we” did not mean any number of persons of which he was one, but that it referred to the Desimus’ organisation, and that it was Desimus and not he who actually attended these meetings; and that when he wrote in the same letter: “I have the full facts of a plot . . .” and “I must run away [p.490] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 to stay in America or France,” “I” meant Desimus and not him. Exhibit B4 was in fact written by him under the direction of Desimus who told him exactly what to put down in the letter. Although, on his own initiative, he assigned to himself, with the approval of Desimus, the work of spying on Mr. Gbedemah in Lomé the facts concerning Mr. Gbedemah in the letters were given him by Desimus.

The case of this accused person was that having come by the facts in the manner described above concerning the plots, the various conspiring cliques, the hiding places of arms and ammunitions, and the “bomb throwers” he felt it his duty as a loyal citizen of Ghana to pass on the information to the President to warn him of the dangers then looming on the horizon, indeed he solemnly expressed himself aggrieved that his bona fides as an informant to the Ghana Government should be so vehemently and ill-advisedly questioned in cross-examination.

It is to be observed that in his letter (exhibit B4) to the President he had asked for the sum of £G20,000 or at least £G15,000 in return for the details of the plots because, “If this is leaked out my life will be in danger” and “I must run away to stay in America or France.” In a subsequent letter (exhibit B7) of the 3rd

October, 1962, when he had brought his price down to £G5,000, he, however, wrote:

“It is unfortunate you have not availed yourself of our services. I have just heard over Radio Ghana the award of £G5,000 for anyone who could give any information which could lead to the arrest of the ‘Bomb Throwers’. Although I am a Ghanaian, I am in the pay of this organisation. I don’t see how you expect me to walk to the police with such information because I am poor and want money. You should know that I have many customers and the disclosure of my identity ends our lucrative trade. The £G5,000 police offer is the fee we were charging for our services.”

And in another letter (exhibit B6) of the 9th September, 1962, he wrote:

“Are you not prepared to sacrifice profitably £G5,000? This is no blackmail. We pay clerks and messengers, etc. and throw parties to get our information and we must naturally sell them. That is our trade—we are not Rockefellers.”

The question of running away to America or France to save his life had apparently ceased to be a matter of major concern. It was now a simple business proposition of buying and selling.

A glance at these excerpts from the letters of the accused person clears up, without any further comment, all that canting humbug about the concern of a loyal citizen for the safety of his country’s Government and for the welfare of its President. In this regard we cannot overlook the fact that the second accused person was in Kumasi from the 20th to the 24th July, 1962, and also for four days from the 5th September, 1962, but he made no effort whatsoever to contact any police officer or any Minister or the President about the information which he said he had. The explanation he gave in his statement (exhibit B8) to the police was that he had not then obtained the views of his employer Davis (i.e., Desimus) [p.491] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Learned counsel for the accused person invited us to say that his client in asking for money in return for information was not actuated by money-making motives. It is impossible to accord to the motives of the accused person any other description. Here was a man who wanted £G5,000 for information which would lead to the discovery of plots against the Government but which he later described in his evidence as “rumours”; whose letters, by which he claimed to have given all the information at his disposal, contained nothing that would have led a crime investigator to the discovery of any crime committed by any person apart from his own participation in the plots to which he made reference; and who in the witness-box disclaimed all personal knowledge of the facts stated in his letters. We are even doubtful whether, if the sum of £G5,000 he asked for had been paid, he would not have deliberately given information which would eventually have proved to be a red herring. His claim to being a self-appointed spy for the Government is a fantastic claim not borne out by the facts disclosed either in his own letters or in his evidence before us, and we reject it.

It is clear from his letter (exhibit B6) of the 9th September, 1962, that the second accused person knew of a plot in Lomé at least similar in character to that which had manifested itself at Kulungugu and at a place near the President’s residence in Accra. In that letter which he addressed to the President he said, “I have just learnt of another explosion near your house. I have warned you. Your enemies are on the war path. The conspirators are many. … You are taking things lightly. The Lomé chaps have not yet come out. But it would not be long either. You have big forces to fight—Your own men and those at Lomé.” Whether the accused person knew of it or not or whether he was deliberately diverting attention from Lomé, the explosions at Kulungugu and in Accra (near the President’s residence) have proved to be the work of the “Lomé chaps” whom we have found to be the members of the United Party in exile. His connection with the United Party in exile is in our view too clear for argument. In his letter to the President (exhibit B4) he said, “We have been holding secret meetings at places on Ghana Borders on the North, West and East and at Lomé where the U.P. in exile is also seated.” “U.P.” is of course an abbreviation for United Party.

In spite of the almost metaphysical gloss which the second accused person sought to put on the meaning of the word “we “ in his letter aforesaid, we see no reason to adopt any meaning of that word other than its ordinary grammatical meaning by which the word “we” in this context can only refer to persons whom the writer of the letter was one. The question then is, who were the persons holding secret meetings at Lomé, the seat of the United Party in exile? The answer is, members of the United Party in exile. In the context of the letter aforesaid (exhibit B4) these secret meetings can have reference only to the “plot which is growing and gaining root.” It follows that the “plot which is growing and gaining root” had been sown and was being watered and husbanded at these secret meetings [p.492] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 held in Lomé and that the second accused person was one of those who attended the secret meetings. It follows further that the second accused person’s knowledge of the plot was that of an active participant in the deliberations at the secret meetings and not the knowledge of a “spy” acquired from his “agents” or from the ubiquitous Desimus.

The second accused person’s vehement denials of having attended any meetings of the Working Committee of the United Party in exile and of the knowledge of the existence of such an organisation as the United Party in exile, as well as his arrogant refusal to disclose the sources of his information, confirm us in the view we have expressed.

The evidence showed that the second accused person and Otchere the first accused person had known each other for some time. The second accused person admitted travelling together with the first accused person on at least two occasions from Abidjan to Lomé and once from Ghana to Abidjan on the 24th July, 1962, just one week before Kulungugu. Otchere confirmed these joint travels in his confessions. The first occasion on which these two accused persons travelled together to Lomé was in January 1962 and that was after Dr. Busia had had a meeting with the refugees in Abidjan in December 1961. Both Otchere, the first accused person and Yaw Manu, the second accused person, said they attended a meeting at Lomé in January 1962, but whilst the first accused person said that the meeting was one organised by the members of the United Party in exile at which Obetsebi Lamptey told them that “he was arranging for the taking over of the Government and the Broadcasting Station by his men in Accra, and that Dr. Busia must be bold to broadcast on that day that he, Busia, had taken over the Government,” the second accused person said the meeting he attended was one of the Refugees Welfare Committee which he attended as a representative of the Abidjan refugees and that the meeting was entirely concerned with matters affecting the provision of food, clothing and other amenities for the refugees, and although Obetsebi Lamptey was at the meeting he couldn’t say whether he (Obetsebi Lamptey) was the chairman of the Committee. He said in exhibit B1 that Ashie Nikoi, Kow Richardson, Agyarko and R. B. Otchere were also at that meeting. The other occasion on which he travelled to Lomé with Otchere is better described in his own words as appearing in his statement to the police (exhibit B10). It says:

“I remember in February or March 1962, on one occasion Otchere told me that he had received a telegram from Kow Richardson requesting him to go to Lomé. He did not tell me why. However, as I also intended going there to find out if there was the possibility of my staying to work, I joined Otchere in going to Lomé. We stayed in different houses. He stayed in Hotel de Golfe while I stayed with Salifu. I did not know what he did there in Lomé…”

Contrast this account of the reasons of Otchere’s journey to Lomé with the account given by him in his evidence before us when he said that Otchere was then going to Lomé for medical treatment.

[p.493] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

A common feature of his joint travels with Otchere to Lomé on the two occasions mentioned was, according to the second accused person, that it was just a fortuitous coincidence that they both happened to find themselves on the same aeroplane, and that at Lomé he did not see Otchere at all. In Otchere’s (the first accused person’s) statement exhibit A2, he said, “In April 1962 Kow Richardson requested Yaw Manu and myself to proceed to Lomé. We went and saw Dr. Busia also there. The procurement of explosives and arms was discussed by us. It became evident that it was difficult to get the articles locally, hence Dr. Busia promised to get some for the Working Committee. On the question of people to use the arms and explosives in Ghana, Adam Amandi was detailed to recruit men from Northern Ghana in Bawku area. Obetsebi Lamptey also undertook to get men in Accra. It was also suggested that I should get men from Ouagadougou. Then we dispersed. I tried to go to Ouagadougou, but at Buntuku I found the road impassable, so I returned to Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast.”

We do not regard this piece of Otchere’s confession as amounting to evidence against any of the persons mentioned therein and especially the second accused person. We do not regard it as evidence that the second accused person travelled with Otchere to Lomé in April. We have regarded it entirely as evidence against Otchere himself, and himself alone, that is, as evidence that in April 1962 he did take part in a discussion on the question of arms and explosives at a meeting in Lomé, and that he made an unsuccessful effort to procure some arms at Abidjan and to recruit men at Ouagadougou. What to us is significant is that according to the second accused person in his evidence he did go to Lomé in April 1962 with the object of attending a meeting, and that meeting was the one he referred to in his letter (exhibit B4) to the President when he said,

“I shall be in Abidjan up to the 27th April. Between the 28th April and 8th May we [the emphasis is ours] shall be attending an important meeting. The place has not been known yet. It is known the last moment to save someone getting to know.” The meeting he said did not take place as it was called off. He had not been invited to this meeting but he went to Lomé to attend it on the instructions of the inevitable Desimus who had assigned to him the task of spying on some people there. Desimus himself was at Lomé for the meeting although the second accused person did not know that he would be there. He did not see Dr. Busia and Gbedemah; he did not see Obetsebi Lamptey whom he did not know was at Lomé then, although he had attended a Welfare Committee meeting with him at Lomé in the previous January; he did not see Kow Richardson although he knew he was at Lomé; and he did not see Adam Amandi and Ashie Nikoi whom he did not know although he had stated in exhibit B1 that Ashie Nikoi was one of the persons present at the Welfare Committee meeting which he attended in January 1962; and he did not know what the meeting was about. He stayed at Lomé up to the 7th May, 1962, when he returned to Abidjan. We do not believe this [p.494] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 story. We believe that the second accused person did attend a meeting of the United Party in April 1962 at Lomé, and that at that meeting (which was one of the secret meetings referred to in his letter exhibit B4) plans in connection with the “plot which is growing and gaining root” were finalised and that that plot was for the overthrow of the Government of Ghana by unlawful means. One cannot overlook the coincident fact that Obetsebi Lamptey returned secretly to Accra in May 1962 to carry out the “operations.” The second accused person might have been connected with a spying organisation run by Desimus, and we make no finding on that issue; but we are satisfied that his many visits to Lomé from Abidjan were not in connection with any such spying organisation. We are satisfied that those visits and particularly those to which we have herein before referred were made for the sole purpose of attending the meetings of the United Party in exile at which the plot was laid for the overthrow of the Government by a resort to violence. We do not believe his account of the objects of his visits to Lomé, and we are not impressed by his evasions and denials. We believe he was in constant touch with the organisation known as the United Party in exile of which Obetsebi Lamptey was the chairman and that he played an active part in the deliberations of the meetings held by this organisation in 1961 and 1962 at Lomé for the purpose already described. We further believe that his journeys to Lomé with Otchere, the first accused person, far from being the fortuitous coincidences he would have us believe them to be, were as a matter of fact deliberately planned journeys for purposes of common interest to them both, that is, participation in the meetings of the United Party in exile.

At this stage we refer to the evidence of Adotei Addo, who as already stated was in Lomé as a refugee from the 17th November, 1961, to the 27th January, 1962, in which he said that while he was in Lomé members of the United Party held meetings and that one of the meetings was attended by Otchere, the first accused person and Manu, the second accused person, among other persons including Obetsebi Lamptey. He said he got to know that the objects of these meetings were to plan the overthrow of the Government. His evidence is amply corroborated by the inferences of fact which we have drawn from the second accused person’s own letters, actions and conduct, and we accept his evidence on this point. Adotei Addo is an accomplice and we are particularly aware of the danger of accepting and acting on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. We however accept his evidence. In general this evidence is substantiated by the inferences of fact which we have drawn from the second accused person’s own letters, actions and conduct.

The plain fact is that Joseph Yaw Manu, the second accused person, having with others at Lomé settled the plans of the conspiracy with apparent certainty of success and considering himself at Abidjan to be without reach of the arm of the law, conceived the idea of “cashing in” on the entire sordid business. It was a mean and avaricious gamble for the best of two worlds, and as often happens with all such gambles he has lost both worlds.

[p.495] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

We have already referred to the evidence of Mallam Tula when dealing with the case of the first accused person and we have accepted that evidence as establishing: (a) that some time before the Kulungugu incident on the 1st August, 1962, Obetsebi Lamptey who was then living in a secluded swish cottage on a cattle farm at a village, Bawaleshie, on the Accra—Dodowa Road, was in possession of hand-grenades, and it is immaterial for immediate purposes how he came by the hand-grenades; (b) that Obetsebi Lamptey had at his disposal the services of six “N.T. boys” recruited by Adam Amandi, one of the conspirators, from the North; (c) that Obetsebi Lamptey armed Mallam Tula and some of the “N.T. boys” with hand-grenades; (d) that Mallam Tula was given the assignment of throwing a hand-grenade at the person of the President in Kumasi in July 1962, an assignment which he did not execute; (e) that some of the “N.T. boys” armed with hand-grenades were sent to the North in July 1962 by Obetsebi Lamptey with instructions to throw them at the person of the President; (f) that one of those “N.T. boys” exploded a hand-grenade within a few yards of the person of the President at Kulungugu in the Upper Region of Ghana on the 1st August, 1962, and that as a result several persons were killed and many were wounded, among whom was the President.

There was no evidence that the second accused person, like the first accused person, had any contacts with Obetsebi Lamptey while the latter was at Bawaleshie, or that he had any hand in the arrangements made in Accra by Obetsebi Lamptey for the execution of the plans agreed at Lomé, or that he had any contacts with the “N.T. boys.” Although the prosecution made a somewhat vague suggestion that when the second accused person was in Kumasi from the 20th to the 24th July, 1962, he visited the North apparently to make contacts in connection with preparations for Kulungugu, there was no evidence before us that he did visit the North during his stay at Kumasi, nor was there any evidence that he had anything to do with the creation of the circumstances that ensured that the President stopped, although not scheduled to stop, at Kulungugu and thus made possible the explosion of a hand-grenade near his person. As we have, however, found as a matter of fact that the second accused person agreed at Lomé with other persons among whom was Obetsebi Lamptey, to overthrow the Government by unlawful means, that is, by a resort to violence and, in particular, by assassinating the President it matters not, in the contemplation of the law, that he, the second accused person, did not do any of the acts which we have listed above and which were done by, or by the direction of, Obetsebi Lamptey who in so doing was only acting in furtherance of the objects of the conspiracy which originated at Lomé.

The second accused person bears full responsibility for all the acts of the said Obetsebi Lamptey and therefore for the Kulungugu incident, and we therefore find him guilty on both counts of (a) conspiracy to commit treason and (b) treason, and we convict him accordingly.

[p.496] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

In view of the conclusions we have reached on the first and second counts of conspiracy to commit treason and treason the charge of misprision of treason which is an alternative charge to the first two counts does not arise, and we therefore dismiss that charge and enter a verdict of “not guilty” thereon. Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, formerly known as Joseph Tawia Adams, was at the time of his arrest on the 29th August, 1962, the Minister for Broadcasting and Information and also the Minister responsible for the President’s office, and in this latter capacity he had an office in Flagstaff House. He joined the civil service after leaving the primary school in 1929 and left the service in 1949. He was a member of the United Gold Coast Convention and later the Ghana Congress Party then in opposition to the Convention People’s Party. He resigned from that party in 1953 because he disagreed with its policy and joined the Convention People’s Party; he became its assistant general secretary up to 1956 when he left for England on a scholarship to study law at the Middle Temple. He knew Ako Adjei the fourth accused person when they were both members of the United Gold Coast Convention and the Ghana Congress Party, and he contributed articles to a paper, the National Times, then owned and published by the fourth accused person. While in England he devoted a good deal of time and energy in propagating the principles of the Convention People’s Party among the students there, and was responsible in establishing a branch of the National Association of Socialist Students Organisation (called Nasso for short) among the students. After his call to the Bar in London he returned to Ghana in 1959 and became the general secretary of the Convention People’s Party up to May 1961 when the President took over the general secretaryship of the party. He entered Parliament in 1961. He held a number of high offices in the Government, and at the time of his arrest he was undoubtedly a leading personality in the Convention People’s Party and in the Government and from all accounts the Minister closest to the President.

Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person, was at the time of his arrest on the 29th August, 1962, the Minister of Foreign Affairs having previously held five Ministerial portfolios. After his secondary school education he went to the United States of America, studied sociology, economics, anthropology, political science and journalism and left with a master’s degree in science. He then studied law in London and was called to the English Bar in 1947. He first met the President in the United States of America; they became friends and their friendship continued up to the time of his arrest.

Hugh Horatio Cofie Crabbe, the fifth accused person, was the executive secretary of the Convention People’s Party at the time of his arrest on the 29th August, 1962. He was before then the Senior District Commissioner of the Accra Region. As executive secretary of the Convention People’s Party he enjoyed the status of a Minister.

[p.497] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

The case against Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person and Hugh Horatio Cofie Crabbe, the fifth accused person was on a different basis from that on which the case against Otchere, the first accused person, and Manu, the second accused person, was founded. Although evidence was led from which the prosecution invited us to infer that Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, was in communication with the original conspirators, i.e., members of the United Party at Lomé and to that we will advert in due course, the essential core of the case against these three accused persons was that they joined the conspiracy in Accra when Obetsebi Lamptey came from Lomé to reside at Bawaleshie from May 1962 to shortly before the Kulungugu incident on the 1st August, 1962, to put into execution the plans of the conspiracy which originated at Lomé. According to the prosecution these three persons’ relationship with the conspiracy expressed itself in their relationship, to use Lord Hewart C.J.’s metaphor of the centre and circumference of a circle, with Obetsebi Lamptey as the centre of the conspiracy circle, with the three accused persons occupying one point on the circumference. Other conspirators unknown perhaps to the three accused persons would occupy other points on the circumference, but a common feature of them all (the three accused persons and the other conspirators) was their convergence at the centre. In such a state of affairs the law infers an agreement by all. If the prosecution proved that the three accused persons joined Obetsebi Lamptey in Accra and participated in the execution of the plans agreed at Lomé, then it would matter not, in the contemplation of the law, that these three accused persons did not take part in the meetings at Lomé at which the plans were formulated, or that they did not even know of such meetings or that they did not know the persons who originated the conspiracy; once an effective connection was established between them and Obetsebi Lamptey they would be just as guilty as Otchere and Manu. (See R. v. Meyrick, R. v. Mulcahy, R. v. Parnell— supra.)

Evidence of the prosecution was both direct and circumstantial. The direct evidence sought to establish the actual physical connection between the three accused persons and Obetsebi Lamptey and the part they played in the preparations for the execution of the objects of the conspiracy which originated at Lomé. A great mass of circumstantial evidence on a variety of matters was tendered partly to induce an inference of the three accused persons’ connection with the conspiracy or its objects, and partly to create what may conveniently be termed a psychological background or atmosphere against which or in which certain facts or allegations could be considered in determining the relation of the three accused persons to the objects of the conspiracy on the basis of probabilities.

The direct evidence was supplied by Adotei Addo and Mallam Tula to whom we have already referred in another context. These two persons were convicted in April this year for the part they played with Obetsebi Lamptey in making preparations for, and in, the execution of the objects of the conspiracy which is also the subject of the charges against the three accused persons.

[p.498] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

The learned Attorney-General, in referring to the evidence of these two witnesses in both his opening speech and his final address, submitted that these persons were convicted on their own evidence which the trial court accepted, and he invited us, in considering the evidence of these two witnesses before us, to have regard to that fact. The evidence consisted largely of their own confessions in which they named the three accused persons, among others, as being involved in the conspiracy (exhibits C1, C2, D1, D2, E1and B2). In considering what weight or value to be attached to the evidence of these two witnesses we have not had any regard to the evidence of these two witnesses given by them at their trial. The fact that these two witnesses were convicted on the acceptance by the court which tried them of their evidence which consisted largely of their own confessions is not evidence of the truth of any statements contained in that evidence affecting the third, fourth and fifth accused persons or any other persons who were not then before the court. We could only have regard to the fact, and the law in our view does not require us to do more, that these two witnesses were convicted of conspiring with Obetsebi Lamptey and other persons to commit treason and of treason, and that their convictions established nothing more than the fact of their own participation in the conspiracy with which they were charged. Their convictions therefore have no bearing on, and no relevance to, the issue now before us whether or not in point of fact and of law the three accused persons were connected with that conspiracy which according to the prosecution was the same conspiracy as grounded the charges against the three accused persons.

Although the judgment of the trial of these two witnesses was not put in evidence we have thought it desirable to look at it, and it may perhaps help in making clear our view to quote the following passage from the judgment in State v. Teiko Tagoe,17 which bears directly on the point:

“A few days later Addo, the third accused, Mallam Mama Tula, the fourth accused, together with the six N.T. boys attended a meeting at Obetsebi Lamptey’s hideout, at which according to the third accused Adamafio, Ako Adjei, Cofie Crabbe, Lamptey alias Odartei, and two other persons were present, whereas, according to the fourth accused Adamafio, Ako Adjei, Cofie Crabbe, Kwaku Boateng, Krobo Edusei and Ofori-Atta were present.

It is, needless to say, that in these proceedings we cannot, and indeed we do not, make any findings in respect of these six persons, and others, whose names have also been mentioned, but who are not also charged before this court.”

Joseph Adotei Addo as already stated was the secretary of the Accra branch of the United Party. He fled the country on the 17th November, 1961, went to Lomé in the Republic of Togo and returned to Ghana on the 27th January, 1962. He said in his evidence that he met Obetsebi Lamptey in Lomé, became more or less friendly with him and lived in the same house as Obetsebi Lamptey for a while. [p.499] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

While in Lomé he said he knew of the existence of an organisation of the members of the United Party then resident in Lomé called the United Party in exile, the Working Committee of which comprised Dr. Busia who was not resident in Lomé but visited there occasionally, Obetsebi Lamptey as chairman, Kow Richardson as secretary, Ashie Nikoi as treasurer, and Amponsa Dadzie and Owusu Nyantekyi both of whom resided in Lagos and Adam Amandi as members. A number of meetings were held in Lomé in December 1961 and January 1962 by the Working Committee of the United Party at which were present the above-named persons and Gbedemah. R. B. Otchere the first accused person and Yaw Manu the second accused person attended one of these meetings. At these meetings, he said, plans were laid for the overthrow of the Government of Ghana. When he was leaving Lomé for Ghana, he said, Obetsebi Lamptey asked him to look for a room at a low rental. Some time in April 1962 a man called Mahama, whom the witness knew in Lomé as the driver of a motor van used by members of the United Party in Lomé, came to him to enquire if he had been able to get the room. He had not then got the room, but Mahama came to see him again in the latter part of May 1962 and he, Adotei Addo and Mahama went together and got a room. The following day Mahama came to him and told him Obetsebi Lamptey wanted to see him at Bawaleshie. Two days later he, Adotei Addo and Mahama went together to Bawaleshie where he saw Obetsebi Lamptey housed in a small swish cottage on a cattle farm. Obetsebi Lamptey told him that he had come back from Lomé for some operations. He (Obetsebi Lamptey) did not explain to him what the operations were, but he (Obetsebi Lamptey) told him to inform some members of the United Party that something would happen in the country. Adotei Addo said he told Obetsebi Lamptey that he could not carry the message to the members of the United Party because if he did his (Obetsebi Lamptey’s) plans would be known to everybody. At this juncture Adotei Addo must have exhibited some fear for he said that Obetsebi Lamptey told him not to be afraid because “they” had the support of six Ministers in the Government for the “operations.” Adotei Addo asked Obetsebi Lamptey who the Ministers were but Obetsebi Lamptey would not tell him. Obetsebi Lamptey then told him that a man called Boakye would be calling on him, Adotei Addo, and if he did, would Adotei Addo bring him to Bawaleshie. On this day Adotei Addo told Obetsebi Lamptey he had succeeded in obtaining a room as he had requested, and later Mahama and five other boys described as the “N.T. boys” moved into the room. He gave the names of the “N.T. boys” as Jacob, Samori, Akulugu, Ibrahim and Bawku. Obetsebi Lamptey told him that the boys were there in connection with the operations. This visit of Adotei Addo’s to Bawaleshie to see Obetsebi Lamptey was his first visit and it took place in the fourth week of May 1962. About a day or two later Kwadwo Boakye called on him between 7.00 and 7.30 p.m. and told him that he had come to be taken to Obetsebi Lamptey, but meanwhile he was travelling to Lomé with some important documents and that he would see him on his return to be taken to Obetsebi Lamptey. Boakye was carrying a large envelope which Boakye told him

[p.500] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 contained some documents. He, Adotei Addo, did not actually see the contents of the envelope. Adotei Addo said he knew this man Kwadwo Boakye personally in Accra when he was driving a United Party van, and he saw him in Lomé in the company of Kow Richardson.

A day or two later Boakye called at Adotei Addo’s house between 8.00 and 8.30 p.m. in a taxi and requested him to take him to Obetsebi Lamptey. Boakye left the taxi standing outside Adotei Addo’s house and when he, Boakye went into Adotei Addo’s house to fetch him, he (Boakye) told him (Adotei Addo) that he was with Tawia Adamafio who was waiting in the taxi. When eventually he and Boakye entered the taxi he, Adotei Addo, saw Tawia Adamafio whom he already knew sitting at the back of the car. The taxi drove them to a spot on the Accra-Dodowa Road about a mile from Bawaleshie and they walked along a bush path to the cottage. Boakye entered Obetsebi Lamptey’s room followed shortly by Tawia Adamafio. He, Adotei Addo, walked around the cottage to make sure there were no undesirable persons about, and he eventually sat down on the stump of a broken wall near Obetsebi Lamptey’s room. Just then he heard the raised voice of Obetsebi Lamptey and in what sounded to him like an angry tone he heard him saying: “If you knew you were not ready and the rest had not agreed why did you ask me to come?” Later Boakye and Tawia Adamafio came out of the room and Adotei Addo went in to say goodnight to Obetsebi Lamptey. Adotei Addo said he then asked Obetsebi Lamptey what Tawia Adamafio had come to see him about, and Obetsebi Lamptey said that Tawia Adamafio was one of the six Ministers he had previously mentioned, but he, Tawia Adamafio, was telling him (Obetsebi Lamptey) something which he did not understand. Whereupon Adotei Addo said he told Obetsebi Lamptey that if what Tawia Adamafio was now telling him was not what he had previously told him then he, Obetsebi Lamptey, should pack up and go back to Lomé. They were at the cottage for forty minutes. This was Adotei Addo’s second visit to Bawaleshie.

In the latter part of June 1962, Mahama called on him, Adotei Addo, and told him Obetsebi Lamptey wanted to see him and Mama Tula. The three of them went to Bawaleshie (it was his third visit), and when they arrived at the cottage and entered Obetsebi Lamptey’s room they saw six other persons in the room with him, and Obetsebi Lamptey pointed to the six persons and said that these were the people “I spoke about.” Adotei Addo said he recognised Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person and Cofie Crabbe, the fifth accused person among the six persons. He knew them before. Also among the six persons was one Odartei Lamptey whom he knew. The two remaining persons he had seen before but did not know their names. At this time the “N.T. boys” were in another room. One of the six persons handed a parcel to Obetsebi Lamptey who undid the parcel and found it to contain eight bombs. Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, then told Obetsebi Lamptey that he, Tawia Adamafio, had already sent one bomb to him, Obetsebi Lamptey, at Lomé through Boakye; Obetsebi Lamptey agreed that that was so, and said that it was used in teaching the “boys”

[p.501] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 how to operate the bomb. The man who delivered the parcel to Obetsebi Lamptey then pulled some money out of his pocket and gave it to Obetsebi Lamptey who checked it, and found it to amount to £G200. The “N.T. boys” were then called in and Obetsebi Lamptey pointed to six persons and told the “N.T. boys,” “These are the people who are working with me.” Whereupon Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, introduced himself and the other five to the “N.T. boys.” He introduced Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe and then introduced the remaining three as Krobo Edusei, Kwaku Boateng and Aaron Ofori-Atta. The person introduced as Aaron Ofori-Atta was Odartei Lamptey, and the other two persons whose names Adotei Addo said he did not know were introduced as Krobo Edusei and Kwaku Boateng respectively. The man who was introduced as Krobo Edusei was the one who delivered the parcel of eight bombs and the £G200 to Obetsebi Lamptey. Obetsebi Lamptey showed the bombs to the “N.T. boys” and told them to go and that he would send for them when he needed them. Before the “N.T. boys” left, however, the man who was introduced as Krobo Edusei said to them, “These are the materials” and that they should follow the President whenever they were directed to do so and throw the bombs at the President. The six persons then left. Obetsebi Lamptey gave Mama Tula £G10. Adotei Addo saw the six persons off, went back to Obetsebi Lamptey and said to him, “But all these people are not Ministers” and Obetsebi Lamptey said, “Let us hold it like that.” He, Adotei Addo, and Mama Tula then left, and about six weeks later he heard of the Kulungugu explosion. Later one of the “N.T. boys,” Jacob, told him that the bomb was exploded by Ibrahim one of the three “N.T. boys” sent to the North by Obetsebi Lamptey. When he heard of the Kulungugu explosion he went to Obetsebi Lamptey (it was his fourth visit to Bawaleshie) and asked him if the Kulungugu explosion was part of the operations and Obetsebi Lamptey said it was, and that more was to follow.

About one-and-a-half weeks later he, Mama Tula and Mahama went to Bawaleshie—it was Adotei Addo’s fifth visit to Bawaleshie—and while they were with Obetsebi Lamptey, Odartei Lamptey and the two persons who had been previously introduced as Krobo Edusei and Kwaku Boateng arrived and “Krobo Edusei” gave £G200 to Obetsebi Lamptey who said the money should be £G400 and enquired about the other three persons. He (Obetsebi Lamptey) was told they would call later. About the end of August 1962, he heard that Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person and Cofie Crabbe, the fifth accused person had been arrested, and he went to Bawaleshie (his sixth visit) to inform Obetsebi Lamptey of the arrests. Obetsebi Lamptey said he would have to move to another place, and shortly afterwards he moved to Akweteman, a village behind the Police Depot on the Accra-Nsawam Road. About the second week of September he, Adotei Addo, went to Akweteman and saw Obetsebi Lamptey there.

We have had to recount the evidence of this witness at some length because the prosecution attached the greatest importance to it in so far as

[p.502] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 it related to the alleged visits of the three accused persons to Obetsebi Lamptey at Bawaleshie and also because of the strong criticisms of this witness’ evidence put forward by the defence. We have not recounted his evidence about the actual part he played in the preparations for the execution of the objects of the conspiracy, and about his association with the other persons with whom he stood his trial, as this is not strictly material in determining the issue of the alleged visits of the three accused persons to Bawaleshie.

This man, Adotei Addo, was arrested on the 23rd January, 1963, and up to the 27th January, 1963 (inclusive), he had made five statements to the police concerning the “bomb outrages” in August and September 1962 and about his association with Obetsebi Lamptey. Thereafter he made two further statements on the 21st February, 1963, and the 25th February, 1963, respectively and another one upon his being charged by the police. Not all of these statements were in evidence, but he admitted under cross-examination that the first time he mentioned the names of Tawia Adamafio the third accused person, Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person and Cofie Crabbe, the fifth accused person as being associated with the “bombing outrages” was in his sixth statement to the police which he made on the 21st February, 1963.

Learned counsel for all the three accused persons sought in cross-examination of Adotei Addo to establish that his evidence in court was wholly unreliable and should be rejected in that that evidence flatly contradicted his statements to the police which in themselves were also self-contradictory on material issues. The evidence which was the subject of their criticism was, of course, that part of it which sought to establish the three accused persons’ connection or association with Obetsebi Lamptey while he was at Bawaleshie. For their purpose counsel put in evidence Adotei Addo’s statement of the 27th January, 1963, his fifth to the police, as exhibit 8, his statement of the 21st February, 1963, his sixth, as exhibit 6 and his statement of the 25th February, 1963, his seventh, as exhibit 7.

Before considering what weight or value to be given to Adotei Addo’s evidence in the light of defence counsel’s criticisms of that evidence, it is necessary in our view to consider the principle of law relating to the veracity of a witness alleged or proved to have made contradictory statements and then to apply it to the facts as disclosed by the evidence. Counsel referred us to the English case of R. v. Harris,18 decided by the Court of Criminal Appeal. It was a case in which the appellant Harris had appealed against his conviction on a charge of incest with his daughter. The daughter had before trial made a statement to the police in which she had admitted that her father had had sexual intercourse with her. At the trial, however, she admitted having made the statement to the police but denied that the contents thereof were true. She was, with the trial court’s permission, treated as a hostile witness by the prosecution who had called her, and her statement to the police put in evidence. The appeal turned mainly on the [p.503] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 effect of the daughter’s contradictory statements and the trial judge’s direction to the jury on that point. The appeal was dismissed and in the course of the judgment of the court read by Lord Hewart C.J., the learned Chief Justice, said,19

“It is well established in the familiar words which are to be found, for example, in Archbold, that ‘The character of a witness for habitual veracity is an essential ingredient in his credibility; for a man who is capable of uttering a deliberate falsehood is in most cases capable of doing so under the solemn sanction of an oath. If, therefore, it appears that he has formerly said or written the contrary of that which he has now sworn (unless the reason of his having done so is satisfactorily accounted for), his evidence should not have much weight with a jury, and if he has formerly sworn the contrary, the fact (although no objection to his competency: Teal, 11 East, 309: 1809), is almost conclusive against his credibility’; in other words, it was permissible to cross-examine this girl upon the assertions she had previously made, not for the purpose of substituting those unsworn assertions for her sworn testimony, but for the purpose of showing that her sworn testimony, in the light of those unsworn assertions, could not be regarded as being of importance.” The learned Chief Justice then referred to the following passage from the trial judge’s summing-up20: “‘It is like a case arising out of a collision between two motor cars in which a witness comes and swears that one of the cars was going at forty miles an hour on the wrong side of the road, and then he is asked, “Did you sign that statement … saying the car was only going ten miles an hour and on the right side of the road.” In such a case as that the jury would very rightly pay no attention to his evidence one way or other, and that is just what you may do in this case, the girl’s evidence may be neglected,’ and in that state of the matter the learned judge addressed his mind and directed the mind of the jury to the question whether, the evidence of the girl herself being cancelled out, there was other and sufficient evidence upon which the appellant might be convicted … it is apparent that the learned judge directed the jury in the proper way, namely, that the effect of the previous statement, taken together with the sworn statement, was to render the girl a negligible witness, and that the jury must consider whether the case was otherwise and by others made out.” See also R. v. Golder.21

In the second volume of Wigmore on Evidence (1st ed.), para. 1017, the learned author deals with the same principle as is contained in the case of R. v. Harris22 aforesaid which is described therein as the principle of prior self-contradiction and refers to the dictum of Shaw C.J. in the American case of Com. v. Starkweather23 which says:

It [i.e., the Principle of Prior Self-Contradiction] is founded on the obvious consideration that both accounts cannot be true, and tends to prove a defect of intelligence or memory on the subject testified of, or, what

[p.504] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 is worse, a want of moral honesty and regard to truth; and so, in either case, that the witness is less worthy of belief.”

The learned author in the same paragraph also refers to a passage from Chief Baron Gilbert’s Evidence which says:

“Another thing that derogates from the credit of a witness is, if upon oath he affirmed directly contrary to what he asserts; . . . and this takes from the witness all credibility, inasmuch as contraries cannot be true . . . Now that which sets aside his credit and overthrows his testimony is . . . the repugnancy of his evidence; . . . if what he says be contradictory, that removes him from all credit; for things totally opposite cannot receive belief from the attestation of any man.”

Further (in paragraph 1044) the learned author, in dealing with the principle that the principle of prior self-contradiction is subject to a reasonable explanation being given by the witness whose evidence is impeached, refers to the following dictum of Danforth J. in another American case, State v. Reed24: “The force of a contradictory statement must depend very materially upon the circumstances under which it was made and the influences at the time bearing upon the witness. It would therefore seem to be self – evident that witnesses so situated should be permitted to make such explanation as might be in their power. The first impulse of the mind in such a case is to enquire how this happened, what reason can be given, and more especially what can the party implicated say in excuse or extenuation.”

The principle as stated is to us not only a healthy principle of law; it is also sound common sense, and it accords with the common experience of humanity in the conduct of their day-to-day affairs in their ordinary lives. No reasonable human being in the conduct of his affairs will ever persuade himself to act on the testimony of a man whose word is proved to be wholly unreliable. The disinclination so to act is instinctive.

We will now examine the evidence of Adotei Addo as well in the light of his previous statements to the police as were in the light of the principle stated above.

On the 21st February, 1962, in his sixth statement (exhibit 6) he wrote in his own hand as follows: “I was arrested and brought to the C.I.D. Headquarters, Accra since the 23rd January, 1963. I have given statements as a result of interrogation. Some of which were written by me.

Today the Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr. Amaning called at the C.I.D. Office and called me. He stated that from investigation he felt I have not told him the whole truth. He brought in Mallam Tula one of the accused persons in custody who corroborated what Mr. Amaning had said and stated that I, Mr. Addo, should speak the truth as regard to the prominent men involved in this bomb incident. Mr. Amaning left the office at about 5 o’clock p.m., and returned to the C.I.D. Office at 5.50 p.m., where I told him that I now want to tell him what I know about these prominent persons.

[p.505] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

What I know about them is that on one occasion I and Tula went to the village to see Obetsebi Lamptey and there we met the following people in his room: Mr. Tawia Adamafio, Krobo Edusei, Kwaku Boateng, Ako Adjei, Cofie Crabbe, Ofori Atta. Obetsebi Lamptey asked us (Tula and I) to wait outside a bit and later called us in. We did not know what they have already discussed. But when we went in, Obetsebi asked us whether we know those people sitting down and after I have looked at them I said yes. He went on to say that those were the people he talked about and that they had brought the things. Here Mr. Edusei pushed forward a parcel which was in front of him to Obetsebi who later opened it. We saw that it contained eight bombs. These were later shared among the boys who had then come there and Mallam Tula. Edusei further gave £G200 which was also shared to the N.T. boys and Tula. They asked the boys to try their best and went away.

Obetsebi Lamptey then told us that these men had organised their women’s group and the propaganda unit so that in case of any event they would jump in to lead the propaganda in support of the event. Here he, Mr. Obetsebi Lamptey, asked Mallam Tula to lead the boys to wherever they could get the President either in Kumasi or in the North. We then departed and I later heard of the Kulungugu incident. Mallam Tula informed me that Mr. Obetsebi Lamptey would like to see us at the village so we went and there we waited for some minutes and three of the above mentioned people called in. They were Edusei, Boateng, and Ofori Atta. We were asked to leave the room and later were called in. Obetsebi received from Edusei an amount of money in notes and counted it to the tune of £G200 which he said it was their share and that Adamafio, Crabbe and Ako Adjei would come later. Obetsebi gave Tula £G10 and said he would give the rest to the boys when they called there. Edusei, Boateng and Ofori Atta departed and after we had discussed about why Adamafio, Crabbe and Ako Adjei did not come we left. Some few days after the arrest of Adamafio, Crabbe and Ako Adjei, Obetsebi left the village to another village. Here I did not see or hear about Mr. Edusei, Ofori Atta and Boateng. But when I enquired from Obetsebi Lamptey he said they were frightened and would come later on. But up to the time of his arrest I did not see them. I would have said or given this statement in my previous statements but I know Tula would give all these facts in his statement as I have covered a lot in my statement. Previously I have said that they told the boys to try their best in throwing the bomb at the President. This was said by Edusei in the presence of Obetsebi Lamptey, Boateng, Ofori Atta, Adamafio, Crabbe and Ako Adjei. None of the people mentioned above said anything after Edusei had talked. To my knowledge no appointment date was fixed for the next meeting and they all left. This happened at Mr. Yemo Annum’s village on the Dodowa Road. I did not know by which means they came to the village but saw them walked back to the bush path.

When the boys came back from Kulungugu and Obetsebi and the three people Edusei, Boateng and Ofori Atta met, he, Edusei, gave the second amount of £G200 as their share. I and Tula were present at the two meetings.”

On the 25th February, 1963, he made another statement (his seventh) in which he retracted, in toto, the facts stated in the statement of the 21st

[p.506] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

February, 1963, (exhibit 6) and it reads as follows:

“My name is Joseph Adotei Addo. I have made over four statements already. All the contents of these statements are true with the exception of one dated the 21st February, 1963, in which I mentioned the names of Mr. Krobo Edusei. Kwaku Boateng, Ofori Atta, Adamafio, Crabbe and Ako Adjei as having met them with Obetsebi Lamptey at a village in connection with the bomb incident and payment of £G200 for the first time and £G200 for the second time. Since I made the statement on the 21st February, 1963, I have not been very easy in mind and could not even sleep over it because my inner self tells me that I have done something against God and that I should not commit two sins at the same time. I am, therefore, here saying that I still rely on my first five statements and could not implicate anybody who does not know anything about this bomb incident. I have never on any occasion met any of the above people with Obetsebi Lamptey. From my previous statements I did not mention their names but on the 21st February, 1963, when I was being asked to corroborate with Tula who on the previous day told me that he would tell Mr. Amaning that I know the names of these people but I did not want to say it. So after Mr. Amaning has left me for some few minutes I tried to corroborate what Tula said in order to be free from being beaten. So the whole of that statement made on the 21st February, 1963, was completely false.

I made it to corroborate what Tula had said, because he Tula was all the time telling Mr. Amaning that I was not speaking the truth if I said that I did not see the gentlemen at the village. And the police believed that I was trying to cover up these prominent men. I cannot implicate them simply because they are leaders of C.P.P., and U.Ps. I cannot prove anything against them in any court of law.

If anybody said he has seen these people or met with them, then I was not there and that man is entitled to prove it to the police. Having made this statement I am relieved of my conscience.” Adotei Addo made five statements before exhibit 6 dated 25th February, 1963. Only the fifth of these statements was put in by the defence. In this statement made on the 27th January, 1963 (exhibit 8), he started by saying “I, Joseph Adotei Addo, have requested the Head of the C.I.D. Mr. J. H. Owusu-Sechere to allow me to make a voluntary statement apart from the previous interrogations.” This request having been granted, he narrated his flight to Lomé and all that he saw and heard there and referring to Obetsebi Lamptey’s request to him to look for a room in Accra, he continued:

“I left Lomé on the 27th January, 1962, for Ghana. When I came I forgot his room arrangement because I was busy finding a job. In February he sent one Mahama to come and enquire whether I have got the room. I told him I have not got it. Then in April I heard that he, Obetsebi has gone to London. But in the middle of August 1962, one Jacob came to tell me that the old man wanted to see me. I asked who was that old man and he said Obetsebi Lamptey, I asked him where and he said some village. I did not believe him so I did not go that day. Two days after he (Jacob) came again and I went with him to a village on the Dodowa Road called Bawaleshie. Here I saw Obetsebi in a small mud room surrounded by woods and owned by Annum Yemo.

[p.507] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

When I entered the room he said, ‘Hello Addo how are you’ and I replied quite well. He offered me a seat and started conversation with me. He said he had come back for certain operations and he would like me to assist him. He further continued by saying we would ‘finish with the boy very soon so don’t worry. Did you hear what happened in the North’ and I said yes. Then he said go and tell some of our members that something would happen and when it did happen they should all join in and cause troubles. Here I told him if I tell one person everybody would get to know of it and the secret would come out. He then asked me if I could get two or three rooms for certain boys. I agreed to try.

While there Annum came with a sack containing bullets and he asked me to go and that he would send for me if he wanted to see me. About a week later he sent Mahama for me this time not in the first village but another village off the Kwame Nkrumah Ave. called Akweteman. Here I met Obetsebi and six N.T. boys including Mahama. Later I got to know their names as follows: Jacob, Ibrahim, Aboko, Samone, Akruku and Mahama. Jacob whom I knew already in Lomé greeted me with a smile and I asked him what they were here for but Tsebi called me from a room so I went to him. I had a seat and he told me that they had started the operation and he now needed the rooms badly for his boys and also to tell him what help I could give. I stood for some time and he said you coward, what are you afraid of, we have support of about six Ministers and have got some bombs too. I asked him the names of those Ministers but he did not tell me. I further persisted to know but he still refused to say the names.

I begged to leave to go and find the rooms for the boys. When I was going the boy Jacob followed me and on the way he told me that they were here for an operation. And I asked him the kind of operation they were for. He said, ‘Well, don’t you see the people, they have all come from Lomé. We went to the North and nearly got the boy but we missed him.’ I asked him from where they went to the North and he said from Accra. Then he started telling how they started the operation from Lomé that they were trained there by some ex-serviceman who was at one time a driver to Apaloo. And when they had the information from Richardson that the President would be travelling to Kumasi and the North, they were hurried to Accra to see Obetsebi for directions so they went to Kumasi and later to the North. And after the operations there they all fled to Togo (Tinbu) and continued to Lomé and back to Accra for further operations.

Asked him how they were going to do the operations, he said what lawyer would tell them to do was what they would do. Then he said they were frightened otherwise they would have finished the job but when Ibrahim threw his bomb they could not throw theirs but ran away. He was trying to tell me about other things but left them for another time. I got the rooms at Odorkor which Mahama came and looked at and later I went to Obetsebi and confirmed having got the rooms, and the boys moved in and he asked me to go out to the town every day with Mahama in order for him to know all the corners in the town. When the recent flood came their rooms were pulled down and I got them another one. I visited the boys where they were whenever I was free in order to know what they had been instructed to do. And if anything Jacob told me. At one time he told me master said he would give them some bombs to come and give to Tula for safe-keeping. Tula too told me they had told him. I enquired from

[p.508] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Tula the next day whether he had received them and he said yes but Annum brought them and not the boys. Some time later I heard of the Dodowa Villas bomb incident and I went and enquired from Jacob whether it was part of their operation. He agreed and said it was done by Samone. I went to Obetsebi again at the village and asked whether that was what he said would happen and he said it was a part but more would follow.

The pistol I referred to above came also from Lomé and according to Mahama he heard from Amandi and Richardson that the last eight bombs were supplied to them by the Minister of the Interior of Togo, Mr. Mali, and also three pistols but the other two pistols were bigger in size than the one brought to Accra so they would try to send them through the North …

So to my entire knowledge about these bombs operations which I gathered most of the information from Jacob I know the first operation was started with eight bombs of British make. These were used as follows: One at Kulungugu.

Two missed or thrown away there.

One at Dodowa Villas.

Two at Lucas House.

One at Stadium but failed.

One with the man who taught them.

The French type which were brought in by the N.Ts. were used as follows:

Two at Chorkor

One at Stadium

Two sent to Kumasi

One caught with Teiko …

This is the true fact of what I do know in this case.”

Those statements taken together with Adotei Addo’s evidence present an extraordinary picture. What is most significant about exhibits 6 and 7 taken together was not that he said in exhibit 6 that he saw all the six Ministers named therein personally and that in exhibit 7 he said he told a lie, but the admission implicit in these two statements that the whole story about seeing these six Ministers at Bawaleshie was a story told at the instigation of Mallam Tula. In exhibit 6 he tells of how Mr. Amaning, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, confronted him with Mallam Tula who accused him, Adotei Addo, of not telling the truth by not mentioning the names of some prominent men, and how Mr. Amaning left the office at 5.00 p.m. and on his return at 5.50 p.m. he, Adotei Addo, decided to say what he knew about the prominent persons. It is clear from exhibit 7 that he was left in Mr. Amaning’s office from 5.00 p.m. to 5.50 p.m. with Mallam Tula, and it was obviously during this period that Adotei Addo got from Mallam Tula his version of the story which he had already told the police and which Adotei Addo adopted on Mr. Amaning’s return to the office after fifty minutes of absence. “So after Mr. Amaning has left me for some minutes,” wrote Adotei Addo in exhibit 7, “I tried to corroborate with Tula only to be free from being beaten … I made it to corroborate what Tula has said, because he, Tula, was all the time telling Mr. Amaning that I was not speaking the

[p.509] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 truth if I said that I did not see the gentlemen at the village.” Adotei Addo’s assertion of the falsity of his statement about the six Ministers does not seem to us to affect the allegations about “corroborating with Mama Tula” during Mr. Amaning’s fifty minutes of absence from the office. These allegations were not refuted, although it may well be said, with due propriety, that that story like the one about the six Ministers is also a lie by token of exhibit 7. It is a process that can only result in a vicious spiral, which exemplifies the difficulty one must encounter in an attempt to unravel the tangled skein into which the evidence of Adotei Addo in the light of his other statements was woven.

The learned Attorney-General very properly submitted that exhibits, 6 and 7 cancelled each other out. Such cancellation, however, did not operate to prevent references being made to any matters contained in either of these statements with a view to exposing the credit-unworthiness of the witness. Moreover the process of cancellation does not, and cannot, stop there. The very logic of the situation demands that it be extended to include the witness’ statement of the 27th January, 1963, (exhibit 8) and evidence on oath. The learned Attorney-General submitted that the criticisms made by learned counsel for the defence would have been more cogent if the contradictions complained of by the defence had been between the witness’ evidence before us, and his evidence at his own trial. We do not agree. There was no reason why the defence should concern themselves with evidence (i.e., the witness’ evidence, at his trial) in which there was nothing that would help their case. The antithesis required is not necessarily between one sworn statement and another; it is between a sworn statement and any other statement whether sworn or unsworn: see R. v. Golder, supra.

A close analysis of the witness’ evidence and his statement of the 27th January, 1963 (exhibit 8), reveals the following fundamental contradictions: [His lordship here stated the contradictions and continued:]

The learned Attorney-General in referring to the case of R. v. Harris,25 on which learned counsel for the defence relied, submitted that the operation of the principle stated therein was subject to a reasonable explanation being given by the witness for making the contradictory statements, and he submitted that Adotei Addo did give an explanation which was reasonable. The explanation he gave in his evidence was that he did not mention the names of all the prominent persons in his earlier statements to the police because he hoped that if those prominent persons were left out he would have some people to defend him when he was put on trial. Obviously he must have mentioned those names later because no assistance for his defence was forthcoming from the prominent persons. That is not an explanation which we will accept as reasonable from a man to whom, the truth appears to be obviously a matter of personal convenience. Moreover this explanation is in direct conflict with what he stated in [p.510] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 exhibit 6 to be the reason for his not mentioning the names of the prominent persons. He said he did not tell the police about these men, because he knew that Mallam Tula would give the police all the facts about them.

The learned Attorney-General made one more point about the case of R. v. Harris (supra), which needs to be mentioned. He submitted that the principle in that case was limited in its application to a case where a witness had been treated as a hostile witness by the party calling him and the contradictions in the witness’ evidence thereby exposed. We see nothing in the decided cases or in the text-books which should warrant such a restriction on the application of a principle which, if it is to be of any practical importance, can only operate in all cases in which a witness’ contradictions have been exposed in cross-examination. After all, the effect of a party treating as a hostile witness, a witness called by him, is to enable the party to cross – examine his own witness.

It was the prosecution’s contention that in so far as Adotei Addo’s evidence about the three accused persons specifically was concerned, it was corroborated by Mallam Tula’s evidence and it should therefore be accepted. It should, we think, be clearly understood that the principle which we have discussed in relation to Adotei Addo’s evidence requires that the sworn testimony of the witness and his previous statements be set side by side, and if the sworn testimony and the statements are found to be contradictory, the sworn statement should be rejected. The principle does not operate on a comparison between the witness’ sworn statement and that of another witness. By way of analogy we refer to a dictum of Lord Parker C.J. in R. v. Golder26 which says:

“Our attention was, however, drawn to the decision of this court in Rex v. Russell (The Times, May 30, 1935), and it was suggested that that case had laid down a qualification to the general principle above stated to the effect that if there was other evidence before the jury tending to show that the previous statement represented the truth they were entitled to rely upon it. This court can see no warrant for any such qualification, which indeed would mean that evidence which was clearly inadmissible would on proof of the other evidence thereupon become admissible. Indeed, as we understand it, the court in Russell was not laying down any such proposition.”

Applying this dictum, mutatis mutandis, in answer to the contention of the prosecution, the acceptance of Adotei Addo’s evidence on the ground that it was corroborated by Mallam Tula’s evidence (even without regard to its merits) would mean that evidence which was demonstrably proved to be inherently negligible and unworthy of credit would, upon comparison with the evidence of another witness, become substantial and credit-worthy. That is a reductio ad absurdum. If Mallam Tula’s evidence is credible it should be able to support the case for the prosecution as “other and sufficient evidence” (R. v. Harris supra).

It is impossible to accord any credit to the testimony of a man who invokes his conscience and divine disapproval of his conduct to declare

[p.511] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 with due solemnity that he had told a lie (exhibit 7), and then subsequently with the Bible in his hand swear to the truth of the very statement (slightly modified) which he had previously solemnly declared to be “completely false” (exhibit 7), and then goes on to declare with equal solemnity and obvious relish that he is now speaking the truth because he has sworn on the Bible, “for a man who is capable of uttering a deliberate falsehood is in most cases capable of doing so under the solemn sanction of an oath” Archbold (35th ed.), page 562, para. 1352).

We may here mention that we have accepted Adotei Addo’s account of events at Lomé as true for two reasons: first, because that account was given consistently, his statement to the police being the same as his testimony on oath; and secondly, because that account was substantially confirmed by the confessions of the first accused person (Otchere) and by the inferences of fact which we drew from the letters and conduct of the second accused person (Joseph Yaw Manu). But Lomé appears to be the limit of his capacity for the truth.

It is not for us to speculate on the motives of Adotei Addo in deciding finally to press the three accused persons into the conspiracy. He was presented to us as a man of “intelligence” and of some “experience of political figures,” which makes any such speculation a hazardous exercise. Our only duty in the circumstances is to declare Adotei Addo’s testimony in so far as that testimony affects the three accused persons, to be singularly unworthy of credit and to reject it, and we accordingly do so. In the case of Mallam Tula’s evidence we have it on the submission of the learned Attorney-General that where his evidence conflicted with that of Adotei Addo we should prefer that of Adotei Addo. The learned Attorney-General’s precise words on this point were:

“The prosecution submits seriously for your consideration that in view of Addo’s background, his experience of political figures, his intelligence, the names he has given should be taken in preference to Mallam Tula’s. That in no way means that Mallam Tula was telling falsehood. He himself has said that he is not at all interested in politics. He said he had seen the third accused once before in a characteristic pose in his car. But the other five persons who came with the third accused person were unknown to him before the meeting at Bawaleshie. He was quite likely to accept the persons bearing those names. He would be mistaken. In this case the prosecution are saying that he was.”

That was an admirably frank and fair submission in respect of Mallam Tula. But the important question is: if Mallam Tula could make a mistake about three of the five persons who “were unknown to him before the meeting at Bawaleshie,” what is the guarantee that he did not make the same mistake about the other two (i.e., Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe) who were equally “unknown to him before the meeting at Bawaleshie?” The only difference between the three persons on the one hand and the other two (Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe) on the other, in the light of subsequent events, was that when Mallam Tula came to make his statement to the police, these latter persons had been arrested and a good deal of press [p.512] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 publicity had been given to them and their photographs widely publicised. It was easy enough then for Mallam Tula to claim not to have made a mistake about them. It is hard to believe that such a wordly-wise Mallam, as he appeared to us to be, did not see the widely publicised photographs of these two persons in the press.

Could he not have made a mistake also about Tawia Adamafio whom he was said to have seen once before the Bawaleshie meeting in a “characteristic pose in his car?” Apart from the fact that there was no evidence before us that the pose in which Tawia Adamafio was alleged to be when Mallam Tula first saw him was characteristic of the man, there is the apparent human impossibility of Mallam Tula’s being able to claim to have known Tawia Adamafio by reason only of the circumstances in which he saw Tawia Adamafio for the first time ever. Tawia Adamafio was also arrested at the same time as Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe, and his photograph was given the same width of publicity in the press. But the “mistake” about the three persons was not the only “mistake” Mallam Tula made about the persons who were at the alleged meeting at Bawaleshie. Mallam Tula was arrested on the 24th January, 1963, and in his first statement which he made to the police on interrogation on the 25th January, 1963 (exhibit 9), he mentioned Mr. Kofi Baako as one of the six Ministers he saw at the meeting. He again repeated his name in his second statement also made on interrogation on the 26th January, 1963 (exhibit 10). According to these statements he saw Mr. Kofi Baako twice at Bawaleshie. He first saw him at the alleged meeting before the Kulungugu explosion and saw him again four days after the Kulungugu explosion when he, Mr. Kofi Baako, Mr. Kwaku Boateng and Mr. Krobo Edusei gave another £G200 to Obetsebi Lamptey. It was in his third statement to the police made on the 27th January, 1963 (exhibit 11), that he said he had made a mistake about Mr. Kofi Baako and that he was not at Bawaleshie. When cross-examined he denied having repeated Mr. Kofi Baako’s name in his second statement (exhibit 10) and asserted that it was the police who insisted on including Mr. Kofi Baako’s name in his second statement. When asked further in cross-examination how he came to make the “mistake” about Mr. Kofi Baako he prevaricated and could only say somewhat naively that it was just a mistake and that everybody could make a mistake and correct it when they realised it was a mistake. Learned counsel for the defence suggested to him that he made the correction because somebody later put him right about Mr. Kofi Baako in that Mr. Kofi Baako was not in the country at the time that he said he saw him at Bawaleshie. Mallam Tula naturally repudiated the suggestion, but the fact remains that Mallam Tula’s correction of his “mistake” fitted in with the fact that Mr. Kofi Baako was not in Ghana at the time of the alleged Bawaleshie meeting.

A point of some significance that appeared to have been overlooked was that in Mallam Tula’s statement of the 27th January, 1963 (exhibit 11), he named seven persons as “the big men” who had a meeting with Obetsebi Lamptey at which Krobo Edusei delivered the parcel of hand-grenades to Obetsebi Lamptey. The seventh person he described as “Okyere of

[p.513] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Kumasi—U.P.” “U.P.” is an abbreviation for United Party. No questions were put to him concerning this man and we do not know who that Okyere was. But the only Okyere, who as far as we know, is a member of the United Party and comes from Kumasi and who is involved in this conspiracy is R. B. Otchere, the first accused person. When Mallam Tula was asked if he knew the first accused person he said he did not know him.

Mallam Tula thus showed an extensive capacity for making mistakes, and in those circumstances it is unsafe to accept his testimony about these three accused persons about whom existed the same set of circumstances as those which induced his “mistake” about the other three persons. In this regard we must say that we were not in any way impressed by the results of the procedure adopted by the police in confronting the three accused persons with Mallam Tula and Adotei Addo and reading to them Mallam Tula’s and Adotei Addo’s evidence concerning them. Mr. Amaning’s explanation for his extraordinary procedure was that Mallam Tula and Adotei Addo were under sentences of death and as he feared that these vital witnesses might be executed before the trial of the three accused persons, he thought that the three accused persons should be given the opportunity of meeting their accusers and to put to them any questions they might wish to ask them. It is a curious situation.

One aspect of this procedure of confrontation was the question put to Mallam Tula and Adotei Addo upon the appearance of each of the three accused persons, namely, “Who is this man?” The prosecution submitted that that question was not put for the purpose of identification; but for what else could it have been put? The question, “Who is this man?” can only suggest that the police wanted to be sure that Mallam Tula and Adotei Addo knew the persons they had mentioned in their evidence. In the particular circumstances of this case it was quite proper that the police should want to be thus sure, but when that situation arose it is our view that the proper way to obtain the requisite assurance was by way of identification in the regular manner, that is by an identification parade, especially as it was admitted that Mallam Tula in particular did not know at least Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe before that “Bawaleshie meeting,” and it is doubtful whether he knew Tawia Adamafio. We feel constrained to condemn the procedure as most improper and we express the hope that it will not be encouraged in the future. When the police in the course of investigating a crime think it necessary to bring to the knowledge of those suspected of a crime, statements made by accomplices, the proper way that conduces to the fair administration of justice is to deliver to the suspected persons copies of the statements made by the accomplices and leaving it to them to decide themselves whether they would like to say anything on these statements. Should the suspected persons, however, express no wish to make any statements there is, in our view, no reason why the police, if they think it desirable or necessary, should not interrogate the suspected persons in the light of the accomplices’ statements and their answers be appropriately recorded, but it is undesirable that the suspected persons should be confronted with the accomplices. [p.514] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Mallam Tula’s testimony concerning the meeting at Bawaleshie and that of Adotei Addo’s were so inextricably intertwined that it becomes impossible to treat Mallam Tula’s evidence in isolation from Adotei Addo’s. It is not the points of conflict between the two testimonies but the very points of agreement between them that make us doubtful of Mallam Tula’s veracity. When we find it impossible to say, as regards Adotei Addo’s evidence, whether or not Adotei Addo really was in the company of Mallam Tula when the alleged Bawaleshie meeting took place; whether or not that meeting took place at Bawaleshie or at Akweteman; whether or not at this meeting a parcel of eight hand-grenades was delivered to Obetsebi Lamptey; and whether the meeting took place before or after the Kulungugu incident; it is contrary to the basic principles of common justice to accept Mallam Tula’s positive assertions on these issues. One cannot overlook the fact, as we have already mentioned, that there was an opportunity for Mallam Tula and Adotei Addo in Mr. Amaning’s office to have come to an agreement on the basic essentials of their story.

When the learned Attorney-General in his opening speech introduced the names of Adotei Addo and Mallam Tula as two of the witnesses to be called for the prosecution he said, very rightly: “The prosecution puts them [i.e., Mallam Tula and Adotei Addo] before you, well knowing that they are accomplices in this case. Your lordships would have to consider their evidence in the light of the law applicable to accomplices called by the prosecution . . .”

Even if Mallam Tula’s testimony about the three accused persons did not suffer so irretrievably from the defects to which we have adverted, we should certainly require very strong corroboration of that testimony before we acted on it. Mallam Tula’s evidence now stands unbuttressed by Adotei Addo’s evidence, and we can find nothing in the whole of the evidence that corroborated Mallam Tula’s evidence. For the foregoing reasons we reject Mallam Tula’s evidence concerning the three accused persons as unworthy of credit.

The rejection of the evidence of both Adotei Addo and Mallam Tula in so far as that evidence affected the three accused persons means that there was no direct evidence which we accept of the three accused persons’ association with Obetsebi Lamptey at Bawaleshie and with the conspiracy that had its origin in Lomé. But that is not the end of the matter, for conspiracy may just as well be proved by circumstantial evidence, that is by evidence of collateral circumstances or facts from which the inference of conspiracy may be drawn. Such collateral circumstances or facts, however, must be such that not only may an inference of conspiracy be drawn from them but also that they do not fairly admit of any other inference being drawn from them: see Sweeney v. Coote.27

Most of the collateral circumstances or facts in respect of which evidence was given by the prosecution concerned Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person. The prosecution alleged that in 1961 and 1962 Tawia Adamafio was in communication with the members of the United [p.515] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Party at Lomé and he was sending to them Government confidential documents and information. The evidence was that on the 20th July, 1961, a young man carrying a leather bag and crossing from the Ghana side of the Ghana-Togo border to the Togo side was arrested at the frontier. In the bag was found a file containing various Government confidential letters and other documents. There was no dispute that the file which was put in evidence as exhibit F was Tawia Adamafio’s file. He, Tawia Adamafio, was then Minister in charge of the President’s office and had an office in Flagstaff House (the President’s residence where he also had his office). There was no evidence of any proceedings brought by the police against the young man (whose name was not disclosed) who was arrested with the bag containing the file, nor was there any evidence of any other action taken in respect of this occurrence. The matter appeared to have been left to take care of itself while Tawia Adamafio continued to perform the duties of his high office as usual.

A year later on the 5th July, 1962, a man who according to the police gave his name as Kwadwo Boakye was arrested at the same frontier, and in his possession was found a large envelope containing some typewritten copies of Cabinet papers, memoranda, minutes of Cabinet meetings and some draft bills. In this man’s possession also was found an envelope addressed to Miss Ama Serwah of 11 Milton Park, London N.6, England. In that envelope were two letters purported to have been written by “B. K.,” the one bearing the date the 28th June, 1962, bore the salutation “My dear B.B.” This letter was put in evidence as exhibit H 1. In that letter (exhibit H1) reference was made to a report enclosed therein and put in evidence as exhibit H2. The report was unsigned and purported to have been written by “Ashanti Correspondent” and it dealt with the political situation in the country generally. The other letter bearing the date the 29th June, 1962, was put in evidence as exhibit H3. In the letter (exhibit H3) the address of the sender appeared at the head thereof as “BP (West Africa) Limited, P.O. Box 563, Accra.” The said Kwadwo Boakye while being taken by the police from Aflao to Ho escaped in circumstances which merit the severest censure on the police officers concerned.

On the 13th July, 1962, according to the prosecution, Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person summoned a meeting of the clerical staff in Flagstaff House in connection with the discovery of the Government papers at the frontier on the 5th July, 1962.

Mr. Leighton, a civil servant employed in the Flagstaff House as a clerk to the Cabinet, who gave evidence of this meeting said that the third accused person told them that some Cabinet documents had been discovered recently at the Ghana-Togo border and that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the discovery of the documents. According to this witness the third accused person referred to the disappearance of confidential Government documents from his office in Flagstaff House in 1961 which he said was a mystery as his office was heavily guarded, [p.516] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 and said further that the recent discovery of Cabinet papers at the Ghana-Togo border had convinced him that the employees of Flagstaff House were responsible for handing over papers to unauthorised persons. He said Tawia Adamafio further stated that the police were investigating the matter and that as soon as the police were able to name the person responsible that person would be severely punished. Shortly before this meeting one Yawson employed in Flagstaff House as a stenographer had been arrested by the police in connection with police investigation into the discovery of the papers at the Ghana-Togo frontier, and the police had found in his room upon a search some Cabinet papers. The evidence was that the third accused person had proposed to appoint this man Yawson as his personal assistant or private secretary at a salary of twice what he was then receiving, and the appointment was to take effect on the 1st August, 1962; that Yawson had been doing some typing for the third accused person privately after office hours. Yawson’s own evidence was that he did such typing only once for the third accused person when he typed for him a memorandum on the future activities of the Convention People’s Party. Tawia Adamafio’s account of this meeting was that a senior officer of Flagstaff House reported to him that he had found some old Cabinet draft papers in the possession of the women food-sellers around Flagstaff House, and he thought the staff were responsible for giving those papers out to the women; he suggested that the staff should be warned against the practice. He, Tawia Adamafio, therefore summoned a meeting of the staff and warned them against the practice of giving out such papers to the food-sellers, and in doing so he referred to the disappearance of some documents from his office in 1961 in an effort to emphasise the want of due care on the part of the staff in handling important papers in Flagstaff House. These events were linked up by the prosecution with the activities of a man called Kwadwo Boakye to form a chain of circumstances stretching from Tawia Adamafio’s office to the members of the United Party in Lomé. Adotei Addo had spoken of a Kwadwo Boakye whom he saw in Lomé in the company of Kow Richardson, the secretary of the United Party in exile. Obetsebi Lamptey had told him (Adotei Addo) on his first visit to Bawaleshie that a Kwadwo Boakye would call on him to be taken to Bawaleshie. The Kwadwo Boakye who called on him was the Kwadwo Boakye he had seen in Lomé and whom he knew previously in Accra as the driver of a United Party van. When Kwadwo Boakye called on him he (Boakye) had in his possession a large envelope which he said contained some important papers which he was taking to Lomé. Adotei Addo said that he later took Kwadwo Boakye and Tawia Adamafio to see Obetsebi Lamptey at Bawaleshie. All this was in the fourth week of May 1962. On the 5th July, 1962, a man who was alleged to have given his name as Kwadwo Boakye was arrested at the frontier with some Cabinet papers in his possession. He was presumed to be travelling to Lomé. From these circumstances the prosecution argued

[p.517] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 that it must be inferred that the documents and papers found at the frontier came from Tawia Adamafio and were intended for the use of the members of the United Party in Lomé.

The prosecution’s argument was that the statement which Tawia Adamafio made at the staff meeting on the 13th July, 1962, meant that the second lot of papers found at the frontier on the 5th July, 1962, came from his office, and it was therefore not a chance coincidence that the first lot of documents found at the frontier on the 20th July, 1962, also came from his file. That view, the prosecution submitted, was confirmed by his close association with Yawson in whose possession were found some Cabinet papers, and the Yawson association was further confirmed by Tawia Adamafio’s statement at the staff meeting that the police were investigating the discovery of the papers at the frontier and that if the police were able to find the culprit he would be severely punished. By that statement, the prosecution said, Tawia Adamafio implied that the culprit was in the audience before him then, well knowing that on the 9th July, 1962, Yawson had been arrested, and that Yawson was not the culprit. Tawia Adamafio was thereby endeavouring to shift the accusing finger from Yawson and ultimately from himself. Further, Tawia Adamafio’s denial of his proposal to appoint Yawson his private secretary, a fact which was proved to be true by his own witness Mr. Beecham, showed Tawia Adamafio to be endeavouring to hide something, and that his association with Yawson could not have been an innocent one. It was not made clear by the prosecution exactly how Yawson fitted into the chain of circumstances leading to Lomé. The suggestion which appeared to be latent in the prosecution’s argument was probably that Tawia Adamafio and Yawson being birds of the same feather were naturally flocking together, that is both of them were dealing with confidential Cabinet papers in an unauthorised manner.

As far as the Yawson episode is concerned we believe that Tawia Adamafio did propose to appoint him his private secretary and we also believe that the staff meeting at Flagstaff House on the 13th July, 1962, was called because of the discovery of the Cabinet papers on the 5th July, 1962, and indeed we have no reason to dispute the truth of Mr. Leighton’s evidence. But how far on the road to Lomé does that take us? There was no evidence that at the time of the staff meeting in Flagstaff House or at any time thereafter the police had pinned on Yawson any responsibility for the papers discovered at the frontier. Yawson gave evidence for the prosecution and there was no suggestion in his evidence that Tawia Adamafio had anything to do with the Cabinet papers which were found in his possession when he was arrested. The first lot of documents were found at the frontier on the 20th July, 1961. The evidence showed that the exodus to Lomé and Abidjan of members of the United Party occurred in October and November 1961, at any rate the evidence was undisputed that Obetsebi Lamptey did not leave this country before about the 6th October, 1961, and Otchere, the first accused person, and Yaw Manu, the second accused person, left Ghana in October and November 1961 respectively. The whole of the evidence for the prosecution showed that the activities of the United Party

[p.518] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 in Lomé from which arose the conspiracy charges started about November or December 1961. In the circumstances it is impossible to conclude that the file, even if it had come from Tawia Adamafio could have been intended for the use of the United Party in Lomé in connection with the conspiracy alleged. The police officer who gave evidence about the discovery of the file on the 20th July, 1961, did not disclose the name of the person in whose possession it was found; he did not tell what action, if any, the police took, and whether the person gave any account of himself or said anything about how he came by the file and where he was taking it to. These were a few relevant matters which, if the prosecution had offered any evidence in respect of them, might have gone some way to establish the fact of how the file got to the frontier and of what its destination was.

A weak link in the chain of circumstances was the man Kwadwo Boakye whose identity was completely lost in the labyrinth of the contradiction of Adotei Addo’s testimony and through the inexcusable ineptitude of the police. Undoubtedly if the prosecution had been able to establish the allegation made about Tawia Adamafio’s connection with Kwadwo Boakye a strong presumption might have been raised against Tawia Adamafio which would have placed on him a very heavy onus. But there was no connection established between the Boakye of Adotei Addo’s account and the Boakye arrested and allowed to escape on the 5th July, 1962, about one month after Adotei Addo had seen a Boakye with an envelope alleged to contain some important papers. There was indeed no suggestion that Kwadwo Boakye was in anyway connected with the young man who was arrested on the 20th July, 1961.

As already pointed out, one of the letters (exhibit H3) found on Kwadwo Boakye contained the address of “B. K.” the writer thereof. It was therefore not impossible for the police to trace and discover the identity of the person to whom “B. K.” had entrusted the conveyance of his letters. There was no evidence of any contact that the police made with this man. He was not called to give evidence and the prosecution offered no explanation why he was not so called. These were very relevant matters about which we are left completely in the dark.

There was nothing in Mr. Leighton’s evidence to warrant the inference that the papers found on the 5th July, 1962, came from Tawia Adamafio’s particular office in Flagstaff House. We were told that other Ministers had offices there too.

On the issue of Tawia Adamafio’s connection with Lomé, reference should be made to Adotei Addo’s evidence about some information he alleged was given to him at Bawaleshie concerning letters that had passed between Obetsebi Lamptey and Tawia Adamafio. Adotei Addo said that Obetsebi Lamptey actually showed him letters written to him at Lomé by Tawia Adamafio who employed the pseudonym Adams Tokornoo for the purpose, while, he Obetsebi Lamptey, adopted the pseudonym Joseph Kweivi. This is not evidence to which we can give any consideration, as we have already expressed the view that the evidence of Adotei Addo in so

[p.519] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 far as it related to Bawaleshie and the three accused persons is not worthy of credit. These documents and papers might have gone to the frontier from Tawia Adamafio or they might have been stolen, and indeed Tawia Adamafio, according to Mr. Leighton, said at the staff meeting that the disappearance of the file from his office was a mystery. The second lot of papers could have come from any Ministerial office.

The most curious fact about the two persons in whose possession documents and papers were alleged to have been found on the Ghana-Togo border on the 20th July, 1961, and on the 5th July, 1962, respectively was that in the one case nobody appeared to have known the identity of the person and in the other case the person just escaped.

The evidence in our view does not warrant the irresistible inference that Tawia Adamafio was responsible for the despatch of these documents and papers to the frontier. All that the evidence established, if it established anything at all, was an aura of suspicion that would appear to us to spread over a much wider field than Tawia Adamafio’s office.

Tawia Adamafio according to the prosecution was a man of inordinate ambition, and although he by various artifices raised himself to the position of being the Minister closest to the President and the President’s confidant, he was not to be satisfied with anything short of his leader’s mantle. His ambition was such that he would not wait for the mantle to fall on him in the natural course of events. He must snatch it, and to snatch it he found a ready ally in Obetsebi Lamptey who had previously been his political enemy.

Evidence to establish that impelling ambition in Tawia Adamafio ranged from London, in his student days, to the National Headquarters of the Convention People’s Party, thence to Flagstaff House, and from there to Moscow, and back to Flagstaff House and finally to the shrines of fetish priests and priestesses at Ada and Larteh.

In his student days he was said to have built up a considerable influence among the students in London by the establishment of a branch of NASSO, an influence calculated to stand him in good stead in his drive for power when the time came. He was said to have pledged himself on his return to Ghana to remove from the President his closest advisers and to become the most powerful man next to the President. As the general secretary of the Convention People’s Party he sought to focus the political limelight on himself by drawing unto himself the loyalty of the essential wings of the party. This he did by building up a strong propaganda machine and by luring the staff of the national headquarters with indiscriminate increases in salary. And when he ceased to be the general secretary he kept a firm hold on the administration of the national headquarters by establishing a complete dominion over Cofie Crabbe, the fifth accused person, who was the executive secretary responsible for the administration of the national headquarters. So complete was his dominion over Cofie

[p.520] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Crabbe, said the prosecution, that when the time came to travel to Bawaleshie to see Obetsebi Lamptey to set things moving Cofie Crabbe had simply to follow his master.

As a Minister in charge of Broadcasting and Information and also in control of the civil service he possessed the most powerful means of projecting his forceful personality on to the national plane and of thus securing for himself the emotional admiration and attachment of all the available human factors that could facilitate his forward march to supreme power. He formed a study group composed of some Ministers and other officials of the Government in key positions. He even sought the aid of fetish priests and priestesses to keep away evil spirits from his path. He exercised, although indirectly, a powerful influence over the Young Pioneers, and in premeditated anticipation of his own future deification he composed the words of the Young Pioneers’ song and creed in which the President was depicted in terms of divine attributes. As a Minister in charge of the President’s office he saw to it with outstanding success that no one, high or low, gained access to the President except such as he personally approved of. That Tawia Adamafio scaled those heights would appear to be without doubt, but that he did so by any unlawful means and by exhibiting any criminal tendencies in the process is wholly without evidential support.

Another of Tawia Adamafio’s creations in the meticulous construction of the foundations for his future power-edifice was the Emashinon group. It was set up, said the prosecution, as a foil to the older organisation of women, more sincerely loyal to the President, called the Double Action Group, and was made up in the main of former members of the United Party and the proscribed Shifimokpe. Cofie Crabbe, it was alleged, was a joint founder with Tawia Adamafio of this group.

In this connection the prosecution further alleged that Tawia Adamafio with his usual unsuspected cunning persuaded the President to make an unaccountable allowance of £G300 a month to his lackey, Cofie Crabbe, ostensibly for purposes of party headquarters’ administration. The allowance, said the prosecution, was intended to be used, and was in fact used, to finance the Emashinon. Cofie Crabbe kept no account of the use to which he had put this allowance and in not doing so he acted, in our view, within the terms of the allowance, and no inference adverse to him can be drawn from that omission. It was for the prosecution to prove that he in fact used that money to finance the Emashinon. This they failed to do. There was no evidence that Emashinon was founded by Tawia Adamafio and Cofie Crabbe. The only witness for the prosecution, Emelia Aryee, who said anything about the group and who was in some way intimately connected with the group said that it was founded by Koshie Lamptey. Further there was no evidence that the Emashinon pursued any unlawful activities or that it exhibited any disloyal tendencies towards the President. The evidence indeed was that in spite of differences with the Double Action Group, attributed mainly to feminine jealousies, the Central Committee of the Convention People’s Party, the

[p.521] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 ultimate governing body of that party, gave the Emashinon group their formal blessing for its continued existence.

Evidence of what has become known in this trial as the “Lenin-Stalin episode” was given by Emelia Aryee. Tawia Adamafio standing side by side with Emelia Aryee at the Mausoleum in Moscow in July 1961 and gazing in enthralled admiration at the mummified bodies of Lenin and Stalin, whispered softly into her ears: “They are like Nkrumah and myself.” “Who are like Nkrumah and yourself?” asked Emelia Aryee, and Tawia Adamafio said Lenin was like Nkrumah and he was like Stalin. Whereupon Emelia Aryee retorted, “Who wants a bad man like you for a leader?” Tawia Adamafio rounded off the interlude by saying in a flash of revelation that that was just the reason why he equated himself with “Stalin, the bad one.” “I took it all for a joke” concluded Emelia Aryee in the witness-box. Kweku Akwei another prosecution witness also said that in a discussion with Tawia Adamafio in his room in Moscow, Tawia Adamafio said, “Ghana has had her Lenin and she must now have her Stalin.”

The prosecution pointed to this episode as yet another manifestation of Tawia Adamafio’s insensate ambition for power and his determination to achieve it by ridding the country of the President. If this episode shows anything at all it shows the unburdening of Tawia Adamafio’s political soul to a close friend: Tawia Adamafio would be the successor of Osagyefo President Nkrumah and when that time came he would probably out-Stalin Stalin. Even now he takes some cold pride in being described as ruthless. The portrait of Tawia Adamafio, the ambitious man, painted by the prosecution, would appear to lack nothing of the true colours of the man. Even as we watched and listened to him in the witness-box we could not but be impressed by his mystical belief in his own prowess, in his exceptional qualities as a political propagandist and in his political destiny, a belief which was only matched by his primitive superstitious faith in the guiding spirits of fetishes and such like supernatural phenomena. Proof, however, of Tawia Adamafio’s inordinate ambition and his avidity for power is relevant in the context of this trial only if such qualities were proved to have led him not only to desire the death of the President as a means of overthrowing the Government by unlawful means but also to make common cause with Obetsebi Lamptey to transform that desire into action. No inferences from the incidents and circumstances of his political life which establish his inordinate ambition and power-lust can be drawn to connect him with the conspiracy to overthrow the Government of Ghana by unlawful means which was the charge the prosecution undertook to prove. Proof of these incidents and circumstances is no proof of that charge. On the 27th July, 1962, the President left for Kumasi to attend the conference of the Convention People’s Party. The President was scheduled to proceed to the North after the conference and to the Republic of Upper Volta for a meeting with the President of Upper Volta. Tawia [p.522] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Adamafio, Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe, among others, were members of his entourage.

The case that the prosecution sought to make with reference to the conference and the subsequent journey to the North and the Upper Volta was that the three accused persons, particularly Tawia Adamafio, conducted themselves in the most unusual manner. Having previously completed their plans for the assassination of the President by throwing a hand-grenade at him and yet not knowing exactly where and when the fatal blow was to be delivered, they took the necessary precaution to keep away from the President. Tawia Adamafio’s conduct in this respect was the most peculiar, for he had been known always to be nearest to the President on such occasions. On this occasion, however, he was found nowhere near the President. He exhibited remarkable unconcern for the deliberations of the conference knowing fully well that whatever was decided at the conference would be of no more than ephemeral consequence, as he expected the President to be removed from the political scene shortly. He was late in arriving at meetings, sat far away from the President, and his desultory contributions to the discussions lacked his accustomed fire and enthusiasm. The same calculated aloofness from the President characterised his behaviour and that of his associates throughout the journey to Tenkudugu in the Upper Volta. When finally a hand-grenade was exploded at Kulungugu he, Ako Adjei and Crabbe were nowhere near the scene. A call to Tawia Adamafio to come and see to the welfare of the President produced the same degree of unconcern that had then become his second nature. When, however, he and Crabbe appeared on the scene they both pulled out their pistols and ordered the security officers to shoot without specifying who were to be the targets. The prosecution said that both he and Crabbe had intended that if the attack on the President had succeeded certain persons accompanying the President were to be shot in the ensuing confusion. The President had, meanwhile, been taken to the Bawku Hospital. Tawia Adamafio, Ako Adjei and Crabbe later arrived at the Bawku Hospital and Tawia Adamafio’s conduct was obviously indicative more of his interest in the President’s death than of his concern for his safety, for he asked Koshie Lamptey the leader of the Emashinon group, who was also a member of the President’s party, whether the President was dead. He addressed the same question to Captain Buckman, the President’s Aide de Camp, who had also been wounded. Tawia Adamafio’s interest in the President’s death, according to the prosecution, exhibited itself once again in one of his ill-dissimulated fits of ambition when he engaged the wounded President in an argument about the wording of a press release in which he, Tawia Adamafio, had suggested that it should be stated that the President escaped unhurt. The prosecution said that Tawia Adamafio’s object in engaging the President in that argument whilst the President was on the operation table was to drain out the last traces of life that might yet be in the President and thus achieve with wearisome argument what the bomb could not accomplish. Further the reference in the release to the President’s escape [p.523] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 from hurt was to warn his supporters in Accra not to make any false move as the attack had not succeeded. We can find nothing in the evidence that supports the allegation that the three accused persons kept away from the President to avoid the risk of danger from an exploded bomb. Crabbe as the executive secretary sat next to the President at all the meetings at Kumasi, and he was seen in a photograph taken at a social gathering at Kumasi to be actually dancing arm in arm with the President. We are not convinced that during the journey to the Upper Volta and their stay there the three accused persons deliberately kept away from the President so as to be free from the danger of an exploded bomb. Tawia Adamafio’s behaviour at Bawku Hospital does not merit such condemnation as to affect him with responsibility for the Kulungugu incident. His enquiry whether the President was dead did not in our view necessarily suggest that he wished the President were dead, and there was no evidence that the President was so badly wounded that any such argument as the prosecution alleged was imposed on him by Tawia Adamafio could have proved fatal. Tawia Adamafio’s reason, he said in his evidence, for concealing the fact of the President’s condition was that it was not conducive to sound political propaganda to publish to the world that the President of Ghana had been wounded in an unsuccessful attack on his life. It was not, he said, in conformity with Ghana custom generally to publish the illness of chiefs. He also cited two instances from the outside world of the concealment of the attacks on heads of state in which they had been wounded. The explanation is not unreasonable. There was no evidence that there were any supporters of Tawia Adamafio in Accra, or who these supporters were, waiting for a signal from the North to act. A suggestion was thrown in the air, and it has since remained in the air, that Tawia Adamafio before leaving for the Kumasi conference had made provision for the setting up of a provisional government with himself as President and Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe, among others, as members of the Government. If such a provisional government was proved to have existed, it would have established the prosecution’s case that Tawia Adamafio was contemplating a change of government during the course of the President’s journey to the Upper Volta, and given some substance to the allegation that there were some people waiting for a signal to act. It would also have provided strong circumstantial evidence to connect him at least with the Kulungugu incident. The allegation, however, was not made by the prosecution in the course of making their case, but was heard for the first time in a suggestion made to Tawia Adamafio in cross-examination. Tawia Adamafio repudiated the suggestion, and no attempt was made to prove so obviously material an allegation. Ako Adjei’s conduct, however, at Kulungugu and at the Bawku Hospital calls for some comment, although such conduct does not lead to the inference of conspiracy. His evidence that he made no enquiries at Kulungugu and at the Bawku Hospital to find out what had happened at Kulungugu and how the President came by his injury, that he did not

[p.524] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 know that the President was at the Bawku Hospital until his driver accidentally drove him into the hospital and that he did not know of the explosion until the President read a police report on the Kulungugu explosion at a Cabinet meeting some two weeks after the incident is an extraordinary story. Either he was lying to us out of sheer timidity, for it is difficult to believe that any reasonable human being could have behaved the way he described, or, if he spoke the truth, he showed himself to be so inhumanly callous as to remove himself completely from the pale of all reasonable creatures. At Tamale where the President spent a few days after the Kulungugu incident Tawia Adamafio sent another press release (exhibit R) in which he mentioned that police and army experts had stated that the explosion at Kulungugu must have been the act of foreign agents. Warrant Officer E. L. Tetteh, an assistant ammunition expert in the Ghana Army, had gone to the North and had after investigation made a report to the army authorities on the 4th August, 1962, in which he had stated that the bomb exploded at Kulungugu was a British made 36 Mills grenade with a foreign booster. The prosecution said that since Tawia Adamafio’s release was written on the 3rd August, 1962, he could not have seen or known about Warrant Officer Tetteh’s report at the time he sent out his release. Therefore, argued the prosecution, the presence of the references to “foreign agents” in the release and to a “foreign booster” in Tetteh’s report was the result of a collusion between Tawia Adamafio and Warrant Officer Tetteh to represent to the world that the grenade that was exploded at Kulungugu was of a foreign manufacture, or, at any rate, not of the type used in the Ghana Army which was of unadulterated British manufacture. This, said the prosecution, would have the effect of shifting the searchlight of investigation from the Ghana Army to a foreign country, and thus save Tawia Adamafio from being found to have had a supply of grenades from a Ghana Army source. It was necessary for the prosecution to establish some liaison between Tetteh and Tawia Adamafio, for in the view of the prosecution the hand-grenades delivered to Obetsebi Lamptey must have been supplied by Tetteh, and hence the inclusion of Tetteh among the persons named in the indictment as one of the conspirators. According to Major Munday the result of some investigations he conducted into the stocks of hand-grenades at the Military Depot showed that a quantity of hand-grenades which Tetteh had entered in the books (during his absence on leave) as destroyed on grounds of unserviceability were in fact not destroyed. The inference was that Tetteh had appropriated that quantity of hand-grenades, and since the grenades exploded at Kulungugu and at the Dodowa Villas in Accra were of the type stocked in the Military Depot, those grenades must have come from the quantity Tetteh had appropriated. Major Munday stated further in his evidence that Tetteh was wrong when he said in his report that the 36 Mills grenade exploded at Kulungugu had a foreign booster, for his examination of the fragments of the bombs exploded at Kulungugu and at the Dodowa Villas showed neither of these bombs to have had any foreign element in it, and

[p.525] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 that the two grenades were of the same type as stocked by the Ghana Army. The prosecution concluded that Tetteh had told a lie about the “foreign booster” in his report and he could only have done so in collusion with Tawia Adamafio.

Tetteh we were told died in the course of police investigation into the disappearance of hand-grenades from the Army Depot. He, however, according to the prosecution, made a statement to the police which was taken down by Corporal Ackah, a prosecution witness, on the 18th September, 1962, the day Tetteh died. This statement was not produced by the prosecution. In all probability Tetteh must have given some explanation about the disappearance of the hand-grenades from the Army Depot and also about his opinion that the bomb exploded at Kulungugu had a foreign booster. Since Tetteh’s statement was not before us to know what explanation, if any, he gave in respect of the disappearance of the hand-grenades and also in respect of his opinion about the “foreign booster” in the Kulungugu hand-grenade it would be wrong for us to conclude that the allegation about the disappearance of hand-grenades from the Army Depot and the references to “foreign agents” in Tawia Adamafio’s press release necessarily established any connection between Tawia Adamafio and Warrant Officer Tetteh.

Tawia Adamafio stated in evidence that he got the idea of “foreign agents” from a conversation which took place either on the 2nd or the 3rd August, 1962, between Brigadier Ankrah, Army Chief of Staff, Colonel Hassan, the Military Intelligence Officer, and the President in the latter’s bedroom at Tamale in his (Tawia Adamafio’s) presence. He said that the army officers suggested that the explosion might have been the work of someone from the neighbouring ex-French colonies. It was suggested to Tawia Adamafio that the army officers did not arrive in Tamale before the 5th August, 1962. In the cross-examination of Ako Adjei, however, the prosecution did not dispute the fact that Brigadier Ankrah and other military personnel were in Tamale on the 2nd and 3rd August, 1962, but suggested that they were there on the 5th August, 1962, as well. Tawia Adamafio said in evidence that he did not know Warrant Officer Tetteh at all and he did not see him at Tamale. There was nothing in the evidence to support a conclusion that Tawia Adamafio did know Tetteh or that he saw Tetteh at Tamale, or that Tetteh was at the President’s residence together with Brigadier Ankrah on the 3rd August, 1962, as was suggested to Ako Adjei in cross-examination. Ako Adjei denied that he saw Tetteh on the 3rd August, 1962, in the company of Brigadier Ankrah in the President’s residence at Tamale. He did not know Tetteh, he said. On the whole we think the alleged connection between Tawia Adamafio and Warrant Officer Tetteh was purely conjectural, as in our view the evidence did not establish such a connection. Shortly after Tawia Adamafio’s return to Accra from Tamale rumours, according to the prosecution, began to circulate and to link the name of Tawia Adamafio and other Ministers with the Kulungugu incident. Evidence was given by Kweku Akwei and Eric Heyman, close associates of [p.526] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Tawia Adamafio, that at a luncheon party in Tawia Adamafio’s house on the 11th August, 1962, one Dr. Makonnen of the African Affairs Bureau confronted Tawia Adamafio with the currency of the rumours linking him with the Kulungugu incident. The evidence was that Tawia Adamafio’s reaction to this confrontation showed him to be a very much worried man. If the inference sought to be drawn from Tawia Adamafio’s allegedly unsatisfactory reaction to Dr. Makonnen’s confrontation was one of guilty knowledge we think it necessary to state that rumours of the commission of a crime do not constitute evidence of the commission of a crime. To require a man to defend himself against a charge based on rumour is to require him to establish his innocence to an accusation founded entirely, in the words of Shakespeare, on “surmises, jealousies, [and] conjectures,” in which the evidence is nothing but hearsay and there are no accusers and witnesses to face. That is not in accordance with the principles of criminal jurisprudence in this country.

It was said by the prosecution that Tawia Adamafio and Crabbe arranged that one hundred Brigadiers be engaged to go about the town to dispel the prevailing rumours about Tawia Adamafio by beating up any person heard repeating the rumour. Crabbe in his evidence admitted that a decision was taken at a meeting in the office of the Minister of the Interior to engage the Brigadiers to dispel rumours, but said that the decision was an implementation of a decision taken at a Cabinet meeting in consequence of the President’s denunciation at the Kumasi conference of rumour-mongering; that the decision taken in the office of the Minister of the Interior did not refer specifically to rumours about Tawia Adamafio, and although rumours about Tawia Adamafio were mentioned the decision was in respect of rumours generally. Crabbe had previously stated in his statement (exhibit E3) to the police that the rumours which formed the basis of the decision to engage the Brigadiers were those linking Tawia Adamafio and some other Ministers with the Kulungugu incident. Crabbe admitted taking part in arranging for the services of the Brigadiers. The prosecution said he did so because he was interested in stopping the rumours about Tawia Adamafio. Crabbe said he did so because of a Cabinet decision on the subject of rumours generally. The Minister of the Interior, Mr. Kwaku Boateng, who convened the meeting at which the decision of the Brigadiers was taken would have been in the best position to tell us the truth about the matter concerning the Brigadiers. He was not called. However, even accepting the case of the prosecution in its entirety we do not think that the rumours and the method proposed to be adopted to combat them provide any evidence in law of Tawia Adamafio’s and Crabbe’s complicity in the conspiracy. The most that could be said about these circumstances was that they might generate suspicions of a sort in which all who took part in the meeting at the office of the Minister of the Interior might well be involved. A few days before Tawia Adamafio was arrested on the 29th August, 1962, Emelia Aryee, who had been a close friend of Tawia Adamafio for “upwards of twenty years” as she herself put it, said that Tawia Adamafio rang her and told her that he had been informed that his telephone was [p.527] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 being tapped, and he would like her to ring him so that he could take the opportunity to sing the President’s praises on the telephone to assure the tappers that he had never had any dangerous thoughts about the President. She did not comply with the request because of something Mr. Kofi Baako told her. Tawia Adamafio’s version was that a report had gone to the President from London that he and Emelia Aryee and Tettegah were concerned with the Kulungugu incident, and that the matter had actually been before the President who had in effect dismissed the allegations as unfounded; Emelia Aryee had expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which the matter had been settled by the President, and when he heard that his telephone was being tapped he thought it was in her interest as well as in his that he should warn her to be careful what she said to him on the telephone whenever she rang him. In whichever version lay the truth this was yet another incident which might give rise to suspicion but which in our view does not establish Tawia Adamafio’s complicity in the conspiracy.

Some time after his arrest Tawia Adamafio’s house was searched by the police, and a pistol and two revolvers and twelve large portrait photographs of himself nicely framed were found and taken possession of by the police. The pistol which was of a Czechoslovak manufacture was found to be of the same make as a pistol found in the possession of one Quaye Mensah who was convicted together with Adotei Addo and Mama Tula. Quaye Mensah said in his evidence that the pistol was given to him by Obetsebi Lamptey. The inference the prosecution invited us to draw was that Tawia Adamafio must have given that pistol to Obetsebi Lamptey. Tawia Adamafio in his evidence said that the pistol was supplied to him by the Commissioner of Police. Crabbe in his evidence said he obtained a pistol from the Commissioner of Police and explained that all Ministers in the Government were supplied with pistols by the Commissioner of Police, and he obtained his when as executive secretary of the Convention People’s Party he attained Cabinet rank. No suggestion was made to either Tawia Adamafio or Crabbe that he was not speaking the truth about the origin of his pistol. If Tawia Adamafio’s story was true, and in the absence of any rebutting evidence we see no reason to say it was not, then it was rather surprising that the prosecution should have sought to suggest that because the pistol found in Quaye Mensah’s possession was of the same make as Tawia Adamafio’s pistol which was supplied by the police, it was Tawia Adamafio who supplied the one in possession of Quaye Mensah. It is rather curious that the pistol supplied to Tawia Adamafio by the police was of the same make as the one found in Quaye Mensah’s possession. We find no evidence to sustain the allegation that Tawia Adamafio gave to Obetsebi Lamptey the pistol found in Quaye Mensah’s possession. As far as the twelve photographs were concerned the case for the prosecution was that these photographs had been got ready to replace the President’s photographs in the twelve Ministries. This would have been a legitimate inference if the allegation about the provisional government [p.528] of [1963] 2 GLR 463 had been established. By itself the existence of these photographs is not enough to induce the inference that Tawia Adamafio was looking forward to a change of government in the near future. Tawia Adamafio said that the twelve framed photographs were for distribution among his many friends, and he produced about thirty other photographs of himself to show that he loved to see himself in photographs. For a man of his expansive vanity that might well be the case.

One more link in the chain of circumstances must be mentioned, and this affected Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person. It was the case for the prosecution that in February 1961 when Tawia Adamafio was about to enter Parliament Ako Adjei by false pretences got the Ghana Commercial Bank to lend him the sum of £G25,000 to be made available for the use of Tawia Adamafio for the purpose of financing the conspiracy or some other schemes of Tawia Adamafio. The false pretences alleged was that Ako Adjei told the Commercial Bank that he needed £G25,000 for use in connection with some private urgent government business but that the money should be paid out to him in his personal capacity, and that he would offer his properties as security for due repayment. Ako Adjei’s version was that the transaction was entirely a personal one for a loan from the bank and denied mentioning anything about the money being required for use in connection with any government business. The entire business coupled with Ako Adjei’s evidence of the use to which he put that sum of £G25,000 was a veritable Alice in Wonderland story. Ako Adjei rang up Mr. Asare, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Commercial Bank, for an appointment. The chairman, instead of making an appointment for Ako Adjei, called personally on Ako Adjei. Ako Adjei asked for £G25,000. He was later asked to sign his name to a loan proposal form leaving the particulars required to be filled in by officials of the bank. A week later the managing director of the bank packed £G25,000 in five-pound notes into a packing case and delivered it personally at Ako Adjei’s office. There was indeed some elementary wisdom in the submission of Ako Adjei’s counsel that a man who could enjoy such a unique privilege would be the last person to want to do anything to disturb a condition of life in which such a privilege was made possible. Ako Adjei was not tried before us on a charge of obtaining money by false pretences, and we are not therefore called upon to make a finding on that issue which in our view is not necessary for the determination of the real issue which was that the sum of £G25,000 obtained from the bank was placed at the disposal of Tawia Adamafio for use in furthering the objects of the conspiracy.

There was no onus on Ako Adjei to prove that he did not use the money for the purpose alleged by the prosecution; the onus was wholly on the prosecution to prove that Ako Adjei did use the money for the purpose alleged by them. There was not even an onus on Ako Adjei to tell the prosecution what he used the money for. He, however, told us how he used the money, and it was there that the general atmosphere created grew “curiouser and curiouser.”

[p.529] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Ako Adjei who spoke with ecstatic self-congratulation of his academic achievements in America and in England in such varied fields of learning as sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, philosophy, history, journalism and law told a story, which, if true, would show him to be possessed of a mentality not a shade higher than that of an unsophisticated illiterate simpleton. He said he was a devoted spiritualist having read and assimilated the contents of upwards of seventy-three volumes on spiritualism, eastern occultism and magic which he took the precaution to display in court. He took the money, that is the £G25,000, to the fields on the Accra-Dodowa Road and there invited the spirit of Zebus of the Kingdom of Uranus to have the money doubled for him. He saw Zebus in a flame of fire clothed in white robes with feet suspended in the air, and he left the money in the fields in accordance with spiritualist practice. He was to call later to find it doubled. When he called, however, the spirit Zebus asked for another £G2,500 which he promptly delivered. Up to the time of giving his evidence in court Zebus had not obliged, but he was undaunted in his hopes. Zebus would not disappoint him. While Ako Adjei might fervently believe in magic and spiritualism which for him constituted the height of learning, we find it impossible to believe that he took £G25,000 to the fields and left it there to fructify. That story we find to be an ignominious lie. But a lying spiritualist is a long way away from the conspirator which the prosecution alleged him to be. In answer to the further allegation that he had been receiving moneys from foreign sources he said in evidence that the moneys so received were moneys he borrowed from Mr. Halm, then Ghana Ambassador in Washington, and Mr. Ayeh Kumi, consultant to the Government on economic and industrial matters. Ako Adjei’s story was that Mr. Halm and Mr. Ayeh Kumi, as the proprietors of a commercial organisation of brokers (later incorporated in Ghana as Nadeco Limited), were conducting negotiations on behalf of the Government of Ghana for the purchase of real property in Washington in the United States of America, and he appealed to them for financial assistance out of the commission that they would earn as the result of their successful negotiations to enable him to recoup the losses which he had suffered by his engagement with the spirit Zebus. The moneys which came to him from Washington and London as disclosed by the statement of his bank account put in evidence were in response to his appeal. Ako Adjei was then the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Halm, and Mr. Ayeh Kumi were both subpoenaed by him to give evidence, but they were both away from the country and ill. That evidence, however, stood uncontradicted, and there was no evidence that Tawia Adamafio had the use of the £G25,000 or any part thereof.

The real truth about the £G25,000 with its ramifications in Washington, London and the Ghana Commercial Bank, Accra, as also about many important aspects of the subject of this trial, has yet to be told. We can only reach our conclusions on the material placed before us.

One last point: In Yaw Manu’s “confidential” statement which he made in writing to Mr. Kofi Baako on the 8th November, 1962, (exhibit B3), he said many things about Tawia Adamafio to connect him with the

[p.530] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

Kulungugu incident, and referred in some detail to what he described as the “Adamafio Clique,” in which were included Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe. In his statement to the police (exhibit B5) Yaw Manu referred to an alleged visit by Tawia Adamafio outside Ghana to look for arms, and said in his letter to Mr. Chinery (exhibit B9) that Tawia Adamafio had intended the “blow” at Kulungugu for the President. In the “confidential” statement (exhibit B3) as well as in the various letters addressed to the President Yaw Manu further mentioned the names of a number of other persons as belonging to one conspiring “clique” or another.

When Yaw Manu was in the witness-box he denied all personal knowledge of the facts stated in all the aforesaid statements and letters (save the facts about Mr. Kofi Baako) and said that they were all rumours passed on to him by Desimus. He did not repeat on oath any of the allegations contained in the said statements and letters about Tawia Adamafio, Ako Adjei and Cofie Crabbe.

Apart altogether from Yaw Manu’s disclaiming all personal knowledge, and denying the truth, of the allegations contained in the unsworn statements and letters, the statements and the letters were in law no evidence against any of the persons mentioned therein, except himself, and therefore, as far as the case against the three accused persons was concerned it was for the prosecution, if they relied on the allegations contained therein, to prove them by evidence aliunde.

There is hardly any one of the circumstances and incidents in the lives of the three accused persons, about which evidence was given, to which some sort of suspicion cannot be made to attach, but it is a cardinal principle of justice that no man is ever convicted on suspicion. A string of suspicions, however numerous and however grave, can never be multiplied together to produce proof of guilt.

When it is sought to prove by circumstantial evidence that a person has committed a crime, the evidence of collateral circumstances and facts from which the prosecution seek to infer the guilt of the accused person must be such as leads uniquely to the conclusion that the accused person has committed the crime, in other words, the collateral circumstances and facts proved must be capable of explanation on no other hypothesis than that the accused person committed the crime. If there are more than one inference to be drawn from such circumstances and facts, or if the only inference is merely one of suspicion, the prosecution must fail.

We have already said enough to show that while most of the collateral facts concerning the three accused persons and of the circumstances and incidents in their lives might generate suspicion of all sorts, none of these facts, circumstances and incidents led irresistibly to the inference that the three accused persons conspired with Obetsebi Lamptey and others to overthrow the Government of Ghana by unlawful means or that they committed treason as alleged by the prosecution.

In conclusion, therefore, the prosecution, in our view, failed to discharge the burden which lay upon them to prove the charges against these three accused persons.

[p.531] of [1963] 2 GLR 463

We therefore find Tawia Adamafio, the third accused person, not guilty on both counts in the indictment and discharge him accordingly; we find Ako Adjei, the fourth accused person, not guilty on both counts in the indictment, and discharge him accordingly; and we find Hugh Horatio Cofie Crabbe, fifth accused person, not guilty on both counts in the indictment and discharge him accordingly.

DECISION

First and second accused convicted.

Third, fourth and fifth accused acquitted and discharged.

K.T.