Summary
Today marks forty-three years since the cold-blooded abduction and murder of three High Court judges and a military officer — a dark chapter that tested Ghana’s constitutional soul and remains one of the most heinous crimes against the rule of law in our history.
As we reflect on that tragic night, we must not only remember the fallen, but interrogate the ideological forces that enabled such horror — and recognize their mutation in today’s civic space.
Worryingly, the same ideological DNA that drove the judicial assassinations in 1982 has resurfaced under Ghana’s new NDC administration, which came to power on a “reset” mantra. But as Ghanaians are fast realizing, this “reset” mirrors the infamous house-cleansing mantra of the AFRC/PNDC era. It now translates into a dangerous form of state capture where those not aligned with NDC ideology are summarily purged from public office.
Former appointees are arrested on cooked charges, detained for days without bail by the EOCO or NIB, and when bail is eventually granted, it comes with monstrous, nearly impossible conditions — like ₵200 million with multiple sureties owning titled property within Accra.
This is not constitutional governance. This is ideological vendetta — dressed up as reform.
The silence of the Bench and the caution of the Bar are no coincidence. They are part consequence, part capitulation. We are, in many ways, back where the darkness began.
On the night of June 30, 1982, Ghana witnessed one of the darkest stains on its national soul — three high court judges and a military officer abducted, brutalized, and murdered under the cover of curfew. Their charred bodies were later found at the Bundase military range.
Justice Cecilia Koranteng-Addow Justice Kwadwo Agyei Agyepong Justice Fred Poku Sarkodie Major Sam Acquah
These were not just names. These were symbols of law, conscience, and resistance in a time when rule by the gun threatened to silence the law.
And it almost did.
The Crime That Tried to Kill Justice
The murders weren’t random. They were ideologically motivated, deliberate, and state-enabled.
The Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) — led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings — had seized power through a military coup on December 31, 1981. What followed was a regime that promised to “cleanse society” but did so by dismantling institutions and sowing fear.
In that atmosphere, “people’s tribunals” replaced regular courts. Soldiers and so-called “revolutionaries” became law. Judges who ruled according to the law — not revolutionary sentiment — were branded enemies of the state.
It is no coincidence that the three judges killed had all ruled in favour of habeas corpus — ordering the release of persons unlawfully detained under Rawlings’ previous junta, the AFRC.
This was a targeted assault on judicial independence. A message. A warning. A purge.
Unmasking the Orchestrators
Following public uproar, a Special Investigation Board (SIB) was set up, chaired by Justice Azu Crabbe. Its final report [1983] indicted several individuals linked to the PNDC regime and provided chilling detail about the planning and execution of the assassinations.
Captain Kojo Tsikata, then PNDC Security Adviser (and blood brother of lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata), was named by key witnesses as a central figure in the orchestration.
Joachim Amartey Kwei, a PNDC member, was tried, convicted, and executed alongside three soldiers: Michael Senyah, Tekpor Hekli, and Dzandzu Yaw.
Yet, questions about high-level complicity, coordination, and ultimate command responsibility were never fully pursued.
Despite state-sponsored ceremonies of mourning, the PNDC never truly accepted responsibility for creating the ideological climate where killing judges could be seen as patriotic.
What Did We Learn?
Ghana mourned. But mourning is not the same as justice.
The judiciary became more guarded, less outspoken, even after constitutional rule returned.
Political accountability for the PNDC era remains obscured by propaganda and personality cults.
The assassins may be dead, but the culture of intimidating judges and suppressing judicial independence has mutated, not disappeared.
And Now, History Echoes
Forty-three years later, Ghana’s current Chief Justice — Her Ladyship Gertrude Torkornoo — faces a coordinated political assault, ironically from the very ideological descendants of that dark era: the NDC.
Though under constitutional rule today, the tone, tactics, and intent are disturbingly familiar:
A sitting CJ facing petitions designed to humiliate and remove her — not for proven misconduct, but for rulings perceived as politically inconvenient.
Bloggers, serial callers, and party propagandists leading smear campaigns to discredit the judiciary.
A deafening silence from the wider legal community, including those sworn to defend judicial independence.
And chillingly, John Mahama — heir of the same revolutionary tradition — now presiding over a cynical attempt to flog the judiciary through public suspicion, just as his ideological predecessors buried judges in sand.
A Bar and Bench in Decline
And here lies an even graver tragedy.
The Ghana Bar and Bench today are not what we once knew. They have grown cowardly, timid, transactional, and worryingly inward-looking.
Why?
Because the same ideological base that defiled judicial dignity in 1982 has trained and deployed part of their stock into the legal profession. These operatives now sit silently — and sometimes boldly — on both sides of the courtroom.
Their numbers are no longer fringe. They are significant enough to neutralize voices of conscience, create echo chambers, and frustrate collective outrage.
That is why today’s Bar and Bench seldom roar against injustice, judicial suppression, misgovernance, or executive overreach. They whisper in corridors. They wait in calculation. Some speak only when it is safe —others, not at all.
And so, the torch lit by the martyrs of 1982 flickers in silence, rather than shining in defiance.
We Must Not Pretend This Is Normal.
Martyrs Day is not for flowers and speeches.
It is a solemn constitutional checkpoint: When judges are attacked for doing their job, the Republic is in crisis.
If we do not speak now — loudly and clearly — then we have learnt nothing from June 30, 1982.
Let the Bench Rise. Let the Bar Roar. Let the Nation Remember.
The murderers of 1982 may be gone. But the ideology that inspired them lives on.
It lives in those who would rather see judges kneel before power than stand for the Constitution.
And that is why every Ghanaian must stand in defence of our Chief Justice today — not just to protect one woman, but to uphold the memory of three judges who died for their robes and one officer who died in their defence.
Let justice stand — as it did, even in the fire of 1982.
In eternal honour of Justices Koranteng-Addow, Agyepong, Sarkodie, and Major Acquah. Ghana remembers. Ghana must act.
