The Ghana Police Service has charged some 31 individuals, who were arrested on suspicion that they engaged in the disturbances believed to have been undertaken by the Homeland Study Group Foundation in the Volta Region last Friday.
The suspects who appeared before a circuit court in Accra on Monday, September 28, 2020, did not have their pleas taken.
They were charged on three counts of conspiracy to commit crime of rioting, substantive offence of rioting, and being at an unlawful place.
The lawyer for the 31 accused individuals, Theophilus Donkor, in an interview on Eyewitness News emphasized that the 31 who have been put before court are innocent.
“They have nothing to do with any secessionist groups in the Volta Region. No one has recruited them into any secessionist group. These are innocent Ghanaians who were going about their lawful duties.”
“The only thing they [police] mentioned [in the fact sheet] was that they [the suspects] belong to the Western Togoland group, however, they [the suspects] have not been charged with anything related to secession,” the lawyer added.
What happened?
Ghanaians woke up on Friday to reports that the group had blocked some major roads leading into the Volta Region.
They mounted roadblocks on the Juapong–Accra, and Sogakope–Accra main roads.
The roadblocks were subsequently cleared as security agencies took control of the highways and strategic installations within the region.
HSGF wants the Volta Region and sections of the northern part of Ghana to be an autonomous country known as Western Togoland.
The group has made a number of attempts to push for its agenda.
The group even declared independence for the Western Togoland in November 2019.
Thirty of them were arrested in Juapong in the Eastern Region and one other was arrested at Akuse in the Volta Region.
The list includes 30 males and one female aged between 16 and 70 years.
