The Ho High Court in the Volta Region has acquitted and discharged the 21 suspected LGBTQI activists arrested in Ho in May 2021.
The court freed the 21 persons due to a lack of reasonable and sufficient evidence for prosecution.
According to the court, the available evidence before it does not satisfy reasonable standards for prosecution.
The 21 alleged LGBTQI activists were arrested on 21st May 2021 for organising an unlawful meeting to champion the LGBTQI movement in the Volta Region.
They were subsequently charged with unlawful assembly and were earlier granted bail by the Ho High Court 2, presided over by His Lordship, Justice Yaw Owoahene-Acheampong.
The literature materials found with the accused persons according to the court were not retrieved from the participants but the room of the organizer of the event.
The accused persons denied being gays and lesbians.
According to them, they were being taught chapter 5 of the 1992 Constitution which talks about fundamental human rights and were at the paralegal stages when they were apprehended by the police.
According to the organizers, the accused persons were persons living with HIV/AIDS, and they were being taught how to deal with legal procedures as persons living with HIV/AIDS.
The court held that the retrieval of the LGBTQI materials created reasonable suspicion and the arrest was made as criminal procedure allows persons to be arrested based on suspicion, but was not to suppress their rights.
The accused persons were subsequently discharged and dockets closed for lack of sufficient evidence for prosecution.
The suspects were made up of 16 women and five men between the ages of 20-35.
