A pressure group – Free Innocent Prisoners Movement (FIPM) – is calling on the President, Nana Akufo-Addo to support the Free Innocent Prisoners movement aimed at freeing innocent persons who were jailed wrongly.
According to the group, there are a number of prisoners in the various prisons in the country who ended up there because of the negligence of a prosecutor or the impatience of a judge.
Based on this, the group, made up of a team of lawyers, visited the Nsawam Prisons to interact with the prisoners and had firsthand information about their plight.
“Our thoughts were just right having series of conversations with some inmates one could just tell our prosecutors many at times just make up stories to get people away,” the group said.
Speaking to the Daily Heritage, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Marrer Ghana Limited and Susatgad Boat Building and Fishing Industries, Novihoho Afaglo said there were instances where teenagers were rated to be adults and supposed crimes had no evidence.
Mr Afaglo said a thorough investigations indicate that in some instances money exchanged hands leading to innocent people being jailed.
He said the lives of these prisoners are doomed while others are there because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“What we are saying is that keeping these innocent people in prison in the midst of criminals, I bet we all know what that means,” the CEO said.
Mr Afaglo, together with his team, pleaded with judges in the country’s courts to give a listening ear to the accused persons who come before them.
“We plead with the judges not to take hasty decisions when it comes to trial of cases because human lives matter,” he said.