Adwoa Safo seeks High Court transfer, argues Circuit Court has no power to hear shooting case

The former legislator shot multiple times outside her brother’s residence has asked the nation’s top legal officer to intercede and move her case to a higher court, arguing that the tribunal currently hearing the matter lacks the authority to judge crimes of this severity.

In a petition dated June 25, 2026, Sarah Adwoa Safo’s legal team contended that the Adenta Circuit Court is operating beyond its remit by entertaining charges that constitute first-degree felonies — offences that the law reserves for trial before the High Court bench.

The former Dome-Kwabenya MP was struck by gunfire on June 21 while seated in her vehicle outside the Kwabenya residence of her brother, Nana Kwadwo Safo Akofena, who now stands among nine accused in the matter.

According to the petition, the blast left her with severe trauma: projectile wounds to her left facial region, the rear of her skull, her left ear and lower jaw, with fragments of metal permanently embedded within her cranium. Her Toyota Land Cruiser bore visible evidence of the fusillade — gunshot perforations scoring the metal.

The nine accused were apprehended, brought before the Adenta Circuit Court and subsequently released on bail set at GH¢500,000 per person, each required to produce two sureties.

The charges lodged against them encompass the use of offensive weapons, unlawful possession of explosives and ammunition, the mobilisation of vigilante forces, the discharge of firearms within an urban setting and intentional destruction of property.

Yet Adwoa Safo’s lawyers argue the jurisdictional foundation upon which the prosecution rests is fundamentally faulty.

The gravest charge — intentionally and unlawfully inflicting bodily harm through the deployment of an offensive weapon — constitutes a first-degree felony under Ghanaian criminal law.

Such offences fall within the exclusive purview of the High Court, which alone possesses the authority to hear such matters through indictment.

“Respectfully, the offence of intentionally and unlawfully causing harm with the use of an offensive weapon is a first-degree felony and is triable on indictment before the High Court, not the Circuit Court,” the petition asserted.

The legal team further argued that the Circuit Court’s very assumption of jurisdiction — its grant of bail, its processing of the accused — represents an ultra vires act, an exercise of authority the institution simply does not possess.

In light of these contentions, the lawyers have formally petitioned the Attorney-General to take possession of the police investigation file, evaluate the charges independently and direct that the matter be refiled in the appropriate court — the High Court — where it can proceed through a comprehensive trial conducted with proper expedition.

Copies of the petition were distributed to a broad range of recipients: the Deputy Attorney-General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Adenta Circuit Court bench, the police hierarchy including the Inspector-General and the head of criminal investigations, and the Greater Accra Regional Police command.

The filing represents a procedural challenge to the constitutional competency of the tribunal hearing the case — an assertion that whatever merits the prosecution might ultimately establish, the Circuit Court simply lacks the legal standing to hear evidence and render judgment.

Yaw Opoku Amoako

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