An Accra High Court has sentenced a mother of two by name Lydia Aboagye to life imprisonment after a seven-member jury found her guilty of murdering her husband during a domestic dispute in 2021.
The jury returned a 5-2 majority guilty verdict on July 30, 2026, after 39 minutes of deliberation. 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 majority decision was sufficient to secure her conviction.
Presiding judge Justice Marie-Louise Simmons adopted the jury’s verdict and sentenced Aboagye to life imprisonment.
When she was given the chance to address the court before sentencing, Aboagye said, “I have nothing to say.”
The judge gave the convict and her lawyer one month from July 30, 2026, to file an appeal at the Court of Appeal.
According to the prosecution, Aboagye, a petty trader, lived with her husband, Kweku Gyasi, and their two children in a single room at Omanjor-Dwenewoho, a property owned by a driver’s mate.
The prosecution, led by Senior State Attorney Christabel Selma Anafure, said an argument broke out between the couple at about 4:30am on November 3, 2021. In the course of the quarrel, Aboagye picked up a broken Coca-Cola bottle and stabbed her husband in the left rib.
When blood began oozing from the wound, she rushed out and locked her bleeding husband inside the room, then ran about 150 metres away to dispose of the bottle in nearby bushes.
At around 5:30am, the landlord, a Muslim who had just finished his Fajr prayers, was alerted by his daughter, who reported hearing unusual sounds from the couple’s room while sweeping the compound. He found the door locked, forced it open, and discovered Gyasi lying in a pool of blood.
Neighbours helped rush Gyasi to the Ga West Municipal Hospital, popularly known as Amasaman Government Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His body was later moved to the Police Hospital mortuary for preservation and an autopsy.
Aboagye later returned to the house and was allegedly cleaning the bloodstains when neighbours apprehended her and handed her to the police.
During the trial, the prosecution called three witnesses, while the defence called Aboagye herself and her mother.
