Ghana's government is to rebury the bodies of former head of state Lieutenant-General Frederick Akuffo and two other military leaders who were executed during a 1979 coup, a military source said Friday.

The two other late military rulers are generals Akwasi Afrifa and Ignatius Acheampong. At the request of the widows and families of the three leaders, their bodies were exhumed this year for reburial.

All three held power in the 1960s and 1970s after the west African state's founding president, Kwame Nkrumah, was deposed in a military coup in February 1966.

Five other officers shot by firing squad in the wake of the bloody June 4, 1979 revolution that swept longtime ruler Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings to power will also be reburied next week or early next year.

President John Kufuor's government had announced in July that the men would be given a "fitting burial", once their remains had been properly identified by a commission.

Source: AFP