Taking A Look Back: Firing Squad Executes Former Ghana Leader On Corruption Charge

ACCRA, Ghana, June 16, 1979 — Ghana’s former Head of State, Ignatius K. Acheampong, was executed by a firing squad early today after being convicted of squandering Government funds.

The 47-year-old former army general, who ruled the country for more than six years, stood trial before a revolutionary court set up by a group of junior officers who seized power in a coup 12 days ago.

Another British‐trained officer, Lieut. Gen. E. K. Utuka, former commander of. the border guards were found guilty of the same charges and executed with him.

The coup overthrew Mr. Acheampong’s successor, Lieut. Gen. Frederick W. K. Akuffo. General Akuffo is in custody and may also face trial.

The executions, the first by the new regime, came two days before Ghanaians were due to vote in elections for a President and civilian government that Continued From Page 1

Revolutionary Council has pledged will take over Oct. 1.

The Accra Radio said Mr. Acheampong and General Utuka, 42, using had been convicted “on charges of using their positions to amass wealth while in office and recklessly dissipating state funds to the detriment of the country.”

Acheampong Ruled 1972.78

Ignatius Kutu Acheampong was a British-trained lieutenant colonel in January 1972 when the military seized power for the second time in Ghana, intending once again to refloat a debt‐ridden economy and wipe out corruption. His administration got off to a good start in many areas until it foundered last July on the same shoals that wrecked the two civilian Governments before it.

Ghana, the former British colony of Gold Coast, became independent in 1957. The first leader of the new West African nation, Kwame Nkrumah, tried to cope by imposing a single‐party regime that was beset by economic problems, attempted coups and political unrest.

The military seized power in early 1968 but was able to solve a few of the country’s problems, and the civilian politicians returned to power with the election of Dr. Kofi Busia as Prime Minister in 1969.

Disillusionment with Dr. Busia’s largely ineffective and repressive stewardship caused his fall while he was on a .visit to London in January 1972. Prodded by economic failures, foreign debts, and official corruption, the military once again took charge in a coup led by the then Colonel Acheampong, who was re-regarded as an effective commanding officer with a professional soldier’s style.

Born in Cocoa‐Growing Region

He was born Sept. 23, 1931, in Kumasi, Ghana’s second city and center of the cocoa‐growing Ashanti region. He attended both Roman Catholic and nonsectarian schools and taught at a commercial college before enlisting in the army.

Trained at Aldershot, England, as a cadet officer, he was commissioned in 1959 and served with distinction in the Ghanaian Army contingent during the United Nations operations in the Congo in 1962‐63. He also took a United States Army course at the General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

At the time of the coup that brought him to power, he was commander of Ghana’s First Infantry Brigade.

A trim, broad‐shouldered man, General Acheampong began with bold moves. Soon, he had earned the respect and loyalty of many Ghanaians as he organized the new National Redemption Council and pressed on with currency reform and an austerity program that banned the import of luxuries.

But starting in late 1975, Ghana began to experience the troubles it had suffered under the previous regimes, with rising food prices and soaring inflation.

Under increasing political pressure, General Acheampong began in late 1976 to speak of a transition to civilian rule with a so‐called union government, a nonparty administration consisting of military and police officers and civilians.

The military Government then held a referendum in March 1978 and, amid signs of growing political repression, claimed a popular mandate for its proposed government. In mid‐April, leading opposition figures were jailed on charges that they had sought to foment a general strike to protest the results of the referendum. Other opposition figures fled the country.

General Acheampong’s Government outlawed political groups and froze the financial assets of its adversaries before replacing him with General Akuffo.