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05.07.2006 Regional News

Pay Compensation For Murdered Judges - Ababio

05.07.2006 LISTEN
By TIMES

THE president of the Central Regional Bar Association, Peter Ababio, has asked the government to implement the recommendations of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) and also pay due compensation to the families of the three High Court Judges and an army officer abducted from their homes and murdered on June 30, 1982 in the wake of the 31st December 1981 Revolution.

The murdered judges were Mrs. Justice Cecilia Afram Koranteng-Addow, Mr. Justice Kwadwo-Agyei-Agyepong, and Mr. Justice Frederick Poku Sakordie. The fourth victim was Major Sam Acquah.

Mr. Ababio made the appeal on Friday at a Remembrance Church Service at the Cape Coast Methodist Cathedral to mark the 24th anniversary of the murders.

The church service was attended by judges, lawyers, and judicial staff in Cape Coast.

Mr. Ababio said, “by those commemorative events, the Ghana Bar Association wishes to leave no one in any doubt that, it will forever commend and hold in high esteem, judicial courage, honesty, fairness, impartiality, and the total commitment of all judges to their judicial oath and of all Ghanaians to the rule of law.

“Without these, no nation can know real peace, harmony, happiness and development.”

Mr. Ababio recalled how the news of the murders was broadcast by Radio Ghana, and how officialdom at that time feigned complete ignorance of what had happened to the judges and the soldier and shed “crocodile tears”.

He said even though the perpetrators were eventually tried and executed, one of them, Cpl. S. K. Amedeka, was allowed to escape from jail to flee the country.

The Very Rev. Benjamin Quansah, former Chaplain-General of the Ghana Police Service, who preached the sermon, said life is holy and sacrosanct, and therefore respect for human life must be everybody's concern.

There were intercessory prayers by members of the bench, the bar, and judicial staff for the souls of the victims to rest in perfect peace.

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