The Court of Appeal has acquitted and discharged the former Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, overturning her 10-year conviction by the High Court.
The three-member panel of the Court with Justices Emmanuel Ankamah, Emmanuel Senyo Amedahe, and Samuel Obeng-Diawuo held that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
The new ruling by the Court now clears the former MASLOC CEO of the charges for which she had been convicted and sentenced.
In its judgment delivered on Thursday, the Court of Appeal held that the trial court failed to properly apply the constitutional principle that every accused person is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
The appellate court also raised concerns about the prosecution’s handling of the case, finding that the evidence presented was insufficient to support the convictions entered by the trial court.
Sedina Attionu was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison in 2024, after the High Court in Accra found her guilty of embezzlement and causing financial loss to the state during her tenure as MASLOC CEO from 2013 to 2016.
Ahead of the sentence, she had failed to return to Ghana after being granted permission by the High Court in 2021 to seek medical treatment in the US.
She was extradited from the US last month to serve her sentence.
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