George Bernard Shaw, lawyer for Yaw Asante Agyekum, has slammed Ghana’s remand and justice system as “inhumane,” after his client spent eight years in jail without trial before being sentenced.
Agyekum was sentenced to 35 years in 2010 after being linked to the infamous armed robber Ataa Ayi, who received a 160-year prison sentence. However, on June 5, 2025, the Court of Appeal acquitted and discharged Agyekum, bringing an end to a 15-year legal ordeal.
In an interview on Channel One TV’s The Point of View with Bernard Avle on Wednesday, June 11, Shaw revealed that Agyekum had been held on remand from 2002 until his sentencing in 2010.
He said it took him between 10 to 11 years before he was able to get his client out of prison.
He explained that the movement of court dockets during the relocation to the current Court Complex complicated efforts to retrieve records.
Shaw blamed the delays largely on the lack of a digitised judicial system in the past, emphasising that if a digital system had existed earlier, the process could have taken months instead of a decade.
Shaw noted that he had to reconstruct case documents manually, relying on old records and contacting co-defendants for missing materials.
He said it took him five years to gather all the necessary documents, noting that the court lacked the required records and he had to locate them on his own.
“When Asante Agyekum was convicted, the courts were not computerised. I wasn’t here [Ghana]. I understood there was a fast-track court, and so, that is where he was tried, and they moved to the Court Complex now. In the process of the movement, I think some of the court dockets went to different areas, and some were sent to archives. Because it was a long time ago. Asante Agyekum had a record of court proceedings, and so that was my starting point. Because I couldn’t get any other source for the documents, there were co-defendants, so you contact them and you put what you get together. It was between 2014 to 2019 before I got what I thought was necessary.
He added, “[It took me almost five years to get all the documents], whereas I could have fallen on the computerised system. In 2019, it was adjourned sine die because the documents were not complete. It was between 2019 and 2024, I managed to get the full documents. I was able to get him out of prison between 2015 to 2025. The initial attempt began in 2014.”
He described Ghana’s remand regime “inhumane,” underscoring the urgent need for judicial reforms to prevent others from enduring similar injustices.
“The remand regime is inhumane,” he said.
The Court of Appeal’s decision to acquit Agyekum came after a review of the evidence presented during the original trial, raising serious questions about the integrity of the process and the role of coerced testimony.
On June 5, the Court of Appeal acquitted and discharged Yaw Asante Agyekum, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2010, together with notorious armed robber Ataa Ayi, who was jailed for 160 years.
Originally taken into custody in 2002, Agyekum was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, accused of working as a mechanic for Ataa Ayi’s criminal gang, which operated across Accra in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Ataa Ayi and his crew were convicted of multiple counts of robbery. Agyekum however appealed the sentence with his lawyers arguing that the prosecution was not able to link their client to any of the crimes.
Upon appeal, the court of appeal agreed with lawyers of Agyekum who had no legal representation when he was convicted, and thus set aside the conviction.
The three-member panel of Justice Aboagye Tanoh, Justice Stephen Oppong, and Justice Janapare Bartels Kodwo noted that the prosecution failed to ‘give enough evidence to warrant conviction and sentence.’
Cops tortured Ataa Ayi to frame innocent mechanic – Lawyer
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