The Court of Appeal has acquitted and discharged William Baah, the former Assemblyman for Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central Region, who was earlier convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for abetting the 2017 lynching of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama.
In a unanimous decision delivered on Thursday, November 20, 2025, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge, Justice Mariama Owusu (then a Justice of the Supreme Court sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court judge), committed a grave misdirection that led the jury to return a guilty verdict against the assemblyman.
“The misdirection of the High Court judge was grave. The jury would not have returned a verdict of guilt if they had been properly directed,” the appellate court held.
The court identified two key errors in the trial. First, the trial judge wrongly allowed the jury to rely on cautioned statements made by two co-accused persons that incriminated William Baah. The Appeal Court stressed that a cautioned statement by one accused person that implicates a co-accused can only be used against the maker of the statement and not against the implicated co-accused unless it is made in the presence of the implicated person.
“The judge was bound to disregard the incriminating statements when directing the jury,” the court ruled.
Secondly, the panel found that the two cautioned statements heavily relied upon by the trial court were riddled with inconsistencies and raised serious suspicions about their reliability.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction and life sentence imposed on William Baah and ordered his immediate release from prison.
The appellant was represented by lawyer George Bernard Shaw.
Major Maxwell Mahama, an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces, was lynched by a mob at Denkyira-Obuasi on May 29, 2017, while on detachment duties. Fourteen persons, including William Baah, were initially sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019 after being found guilty of murder and related offences, though several convictions have since been overturned on appeal.