Treason Felony case: Oliver Barker to appear in High Court as committal ends

Convener of the #Fix The Country Movement, Oliver Mawuse Barker-Vormawor is to appear in the High Court in September this year for the trial of his Treason Felony case as the committal process at the Ashaiman District Court ends.

This follows the moving of the Bill of Indictment on Monday, August 1, 2022, at the District Court by Anastacia Karim of the AG’s office.

The state was expected to request the District Court today, June 29, 2022, to commit the accused person to trial at the High Court however when the case was called, the court ordered that the National Security Report which had not been provided by the state be provided by the Attorney General. 

Even though there was an attempt by counsel for the accused, Dr. Justice Srem Sai to get the court to halt the committal due to his side’s concerns about the charges preferred against his client,  the court presided over by Eleanor Barnes Kakra Botwe in its wisdom, declined the invitation and proceeded.

On June 2, 2022, the State Prosecutors provided a list of pieces of evidence in its Summary of Evidence filed by Director of Public Prosecution, Yvonne Attakora Obuobisa to be relied on in the prosecution of the Treason Felony case. They are;

• Investigation caution statement of the accused;
• Charge statement of the accused;
• Investigation caution statement of the accused;
• Charge statement of the accused;
• Facebook and Twitter posts of the accused person but excluded the said Security Report
• Facebook post of the accused person on 30th April 2022
• An intelligence report from Cyber Crime Unit
• An intelligence report from National Security

It also indicated that it will be calling three witnesses in the case and that the first witness will be testifying about the accused’s Facebook post to the effect that “if this E-Levy passes after this cake bullshit, I will do the coup myself. Useless Army!” which he saw on February 11, 2022, and how concerned he was relative to the security and peace of the country after reading the post.

Further to the above, the 2nd witness is a Cyber Intelligence investigator. He will be telling the court about how he noticed the above post by the accused person during one of his routine monitoring of social media activities.

Also, he will be telling the court about the outcome of his analysis of the accused’s post which clearly pointed to him the fact that most people had been convinced about the need to take over the Executive power of the state through violent and unconstitutional means.

The third witness expected to be called by the state is an officer stationed at the Ashaiman Police Station to brief the court on the information received from the 1st witness which led to the arrest of the accused and the outcome of the investigation.

Background

Oliver was charged with Treason Felony after he was arrested on February 11, 2022, at the Kotoka International Airport upon his return to Ghana from the United Kingdom.

According to a February 12 post by the Ghana Police Service, Oliver was arrested by the “Tema Regional Command following a post he allegedly made on the social media platform to the effect that he would stage a coup himself if the E.Levy Bill is passed by Parliament.”

The Police further note that the post by Oliver Barker-Vormawor contained a clear statement of intent with a possible will to execute a coup in his declaration of intent to subvert the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.