In a sharp rebuttal to the public statements by suspended Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, private legal practitioner Edudzi Tamekloe has accused the suspended Chief Justice of deliberately distorting historical facts surrounding the infamous murder of three high court judges and a retired army officer on June 30, 1982.
Mr Tamekloe asserts that the Chief Justice’s recent comments about Adu Lodge’s alleged role in the “planning” of these murders are historically inaccurate and politically motivated, especially as the nation approaches the solemn observance of Martyrs.
[embedded content]The Chief Justice raised it as a concern, among other things, citing unfairness and injustice in relation to the processes by a committee to review three petitions filed to remove her from office.
In her speech to the nation on Wednesday, Justice Torkornoo questioned the rationale behind selecting Adu Lodge, a facility located in a cordoned-off high-security zone on Castle Drive in Osu, as the site for her hearings.
She warned that the location could not have been a neutral choice given its historic infamy.
“I need to make the disclosure at this point that the Adu Lodge facility that I am being tried in featured very prominently in the planning of the murder of judges on June 30, 1981,” she stated.
“Was Adu Lodge chosen for this inquiry to make me feel insecure? I think so.”
The Chief Justice went further to draw personal connections to the events of 1981, recounting that one of the murdered judicial officers, Major Sam Acquah, was her uncle and legal guardian at the time.
“I was also living with him at the time he was abducted and murdered,” she revealed.
Her emotionally charged remarks suggest that the selection of Adu Lodge may have been intended to unsettle or intimidate her, especially when considered alongside other complaints she listed about the secretive and irregular nature of the process.
“The choice of venue, against the background of the secrecy of proceedings, was intended to intimidate me and to prevent any citizen of Ghana from knowing how the proceedings are being conducted,” she alleged.
The brutal killings of Justices Kwadwo Agyei Agyepong, Fred Poku Sarkodee, and Cecilia Koranteng-Addow, along with Major Sam Acquah (rtd), remain a dark chapter in Ghana’s history, commemorated annually as Martyrs Day. The incident led to a Special Investigation Board (SIB) report that detailed the events leading to their deaths.
Speaking on JoyNews’s Newsfile on Saturday, June 27, Edudzi Tamekloe directly challenged the Chief Justice’s narrative.
“What we are not permitted to do is to obviously use history and historical events to more or less mislead the public,” he began, referencing her alleged use of the phrase “the planning of the murder of the judges” in connection with Adu Lodge.
Mr Tamekloe vehemently refuted this historical linkage to the planning phase. He cited explicit details from the official 85-page SIB report executive summary, specifically paragraph 9.
He stated, “Amartey Quaye and Captain Kojo Tsikata [rtd] met at Adu Lodge on 31st October 1982.”
He then emphasised the crucial timeline: “Guess what, the events happened on about 30th June. By 31st October, the murders have happened.”
According to Tamekloe, the SIB report merely notes that “Captain Kojo Tsikata and Amartey Quaye met in front of the Adu Lodge, nothing more in terms of the planning and execution of the murder.”
He concluded, “So to suggest even remotely that the Adu Lodge featured prominently in the planning is misleading, and the only reason for that is politics.”
Mr Tamekloe strongly believes the Chief Justice’s decision to invoke this historical event at this particular time is calculated.
He described it as an attempt “to play on the emotional keyboard and obviously, you know, we are getting close to the Martyrs Day, 30th June, Monday. So this was well orchestrated to basically do politics with this removal process.”
Chief Justice Torkornoo is currently suspended from her duties, facing an ongoing process concerning her tenure, adding a layer of political sensitivity to her public pronouncements.
Tamekloe found her comments to be entirely inappropriate and irrelevant to her current situation. “That bit of it was completely untenable, unnecessary, everything about… why would her lady the Chief Justice, now suspended, want to bring that historical matter into this? 43 years ago, an event that happened, what has that got to do?” he questioned, asserting that the injection of such sensitive and, in his view, distorted historical details into current judicial affairs was unwarranted.
Edudzi Tamekloe’s strong denouncement highlights the ongoing tension surrounding the judiciary and underscores the political ramifications of historical narratives, particularly as Ghana prepares to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Martyrs Day tragedy.
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