A High Court in Accra has sentenced Lydia Aboagye, a mother of two, to life imprisonment after finding her guilty of murdering her husband, Kweku Gyasi, during a domestic dispute at Omanjor in 2021.
The conviction followed a full trial in which a seven-member jury returned a 5–2 majority guilty verdict, the minimum majority required under Section 46 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), as amended by the Criminal and Other Offences (Amendment) Act, 2023 (Act 1101).
The prosecution, led by Senior State Attorney Christabel Selma Anafure, called three witnesses, while the accused, represented by Rita Kunkuti Ali, testified in her own defence and also called her mother as her only witness.
After reviewing the evidence, Justice Marie-Louise Simmons convicted Lydia Aboagye of murder. The jury reached its verdict after 39 minutes of deliberation, following the judge’s summing up of the case on July 30, 2026.
When invited to address the court before sentencing, the convict told the court, “I have nothing to say.”
Justice Simmons subsequently sentenced her to life imprisonment and informed her that she has one month from July 30, 2026, to appeal the conviction at the Court of Appeal.
According to the prosecution, the incident occurred on November 3, 2021, at about 4:30 a.m., when an argument broke out between the couple, who lived with their two children in a rented single room at Omanjor-Dwenewoho, near California School.
During the altercation, Lydia Aboagye allegedly picked up a broken Coca-Cola bottle and stabbed her husband in the left side of his ribcage.
Prosecutors told the court that after noticing he was bleeding heavily, she allegedly locked him inside the room before walking about 150 metres away to dispose of the broken bottle in a nearby bush.
About an hour later, the landlord, who had returned from early morning Fajr prayers, was alerted by his daughter after she heard unusual noises coming from the couple’s room while sweeping the compound.
The landlord forced the door open and found Kweku Gyasi lying in a pool of blood. With the assistance of neighbours and other tenants, he was rushed to the Ga West Municipal Hospital (Amasaman Government Hospital), where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
His body was later transferred to the Police Hospital Mortuary for preservation and an autopsy.
The prosecution further told the court that Lydia Aboagye later returned to the room and attempted to clean the bloodstains from the floor before she was apprehended by neighbours and handed over to the police for investigations.
By : Rachael Djabakie