An Accra Circuit Court on Wednesday, March, 04, 2020 discharged 20 out of the 21 persons recently arrested on suspicion of being linked to separatist group, Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF).
They’d been on remand after being charged with participation in the campaign of a prohibited organization and attending a meeting of the organization.
At Wednesday’s hearing, the prosecutor, Chief Inspector Simon Apiosornu told the court presided over by Mrs Ellen Ofori Ayeh that the 20 accused persons were deceived into believing that they were being trained into the Ghana Armed Forces and hence prayed for them to be discharged.
The court subsequently discharged them.
Background
Officers of the Ghana Armed Forces(GAF) on Monday, February, 17, 2020 arrested 20 people described as rebels in a thick forest at Fievue, near Kpevedui the Volta Region seeking to have the region secede from the Republic of Ghana.
The arrested persons made up of 19 males and 1 female are part of the Homeland Study Group Foundation(HSGF) which has been demanding secession from Ghana over the years.
In December 2019, pictures emerged on social media of a uniformed group supposedly being trained as soldiers at a place called the Western Togoland Training Grounds in the Volta Region.
The arrested persons are believed to be part of the so-called ‘army’.
Sources in the Ghana Armed Forces say a team of military officers flew from Accra to the Volta Region to effect the arrest.
In November 2019, 80-year-old Charles Komi Kudzordzi, led the group, to declare parts of the Volta, Northern, North Eastern and Upper East Regions [Western Togoland] independent of Ghana.
He was earlier in May 2019 arrested together with 80 other members of the group when they were allegedly planning to declare independence for Western Togoland.
Nine of them were later charged with conspiracy to commit treason felony, abetment of unlawful training, unlawful assembly and offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace and put before court.
The Attorney General, however, in July discontinued the case based on which the High Court trying them discharged the accused persons.
Charles Komi Kudzordzi has been on the run since the charges against him were dropped.
