GH¢2 million bail for coup-monger

A Tema High Court, presided over by Justice Daniel Mensah, yesterday granted bail to the #FixTheCountry convener, Oliver Mawuse Barker-Vormawor, who is facing a charge of treason felony.

Among the bail conditions is a sum of GH¢2 million with two sureties, one of whom is to deposit documents to his landed property with the court. The court also ordered that Mr Barker-Vormawor’s passport should remain in the custody of the State, and he must report himself once a week to the police command.

Justice Daniel Mensah ruled that the court could not disable itself from the grant of bail, having regard to the facts of the case and the legal arguments urged upon him by both counsel for Mr. Vormawor and the State.

He disagreed with arguments that Mr. Vormawor did not have a fixed place of abode, having regard to the facts of the case, adding that he was also at flight risk since his passport was already in the custody of the State.

Senior State Attorney Hilda Craig had described Barker-Vormawor as a lodger with no fixed place of abode anytime he flies to Ghana.

The Office the Attorney General, in documents filed last week before the court in opposition to the bail application of the lawyers of the suspect, spelt out challenges investigators had faced so far. The A-G claimed that the youth activist had also refused to obey a court order requiring that he grants the police access to his mobile phone, though a search warrant had been granted police investigators to visit his residence.

Treason felony

Mr Barker-Vormawor is standing trial for inciting an overthrow of constitutional organs of government. He has denied the allegations, insisting that he is ready for the trial.

He was arrested on February 11, 2022 over claims that he had threatened to stage a coup if government went ahead to pass the controversial Electronic Transactions Levy (E-Levy).

Mr. Barker-Vormawor, in his application for bail, contested the claims, saying a charge of treason felony against him cannot be sustained by the evidence available.

But, according to the Attorney-General’s affidavit in opposition, evidence gathered so far by the police can sustain the charge of treason felony as proffered, and that in the view of investigators, Barker-Vormawor’s “conduct revealed a systematic pattern on his part to incite his social media followers into accepting his endeavour to usurp the constitutional organs of Government”.

The affidavit says the embattled #Fixthecountry convener has “since 2021 been inciting social media followers to effect by unlawful means an overthrow of the constitutionally established organs of the Government of Ghana”, which advocacy has been traced on “a number of posts on his Facebook and Twitter social media accounts”.