Former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Godfred Dame says no notice of appeal filed by former MASLOC chief executive Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu in 2024 came to his attention while he was in office.
Dame made the claim in a statement issued on Friday, 31 July, after the Court of Appeal overturned Tamakloe-Attionu’s 10-year prison sentence and acquitted her.
He said State Attorneys told the Court of Appeal in written and oral submissions in April 2026 that they had not been served with notice of the appeal. They said they became aware of the case only after the court instructed the parties to file written submissions.
“No notice of an appeal filed by Sedina Attionu in 2024 came to the attention of the Office of Attorney-General in my tenure,” Dame asserted.
Tamakloe-Attionu was convicted by an Accra High Court in April 2024 and sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison with hard labour for causing financial loss to the state. She was outside the country when the judgment was delivered.
The former MASLOC CEO was convicted on 78 counts, including stealing, causing financial loss to the state and money laundering. The Court of Appeal later ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges against her and that she should not have been sentenced.
Dame also said there had been no reference to a 2024 appeal during extradition proceedings involving Tamakloe-Attionu. Those proceedings began in July 2024 and concluded in April 2026, he said, and the alleged appeal was not mentioned in documents filed by Tamakloe-Attionu before the US District Court.
He accused communicators of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of promoting a “false and devious narrative” that an appeal notice had been filed in 2024.
According to Dame, the claim was an attempt to “shift the blame for the acquittal of Madam Sedina Tamakloe-Attionu onto the Akufo-Addo Government and principally my good self as the immediate past Attorney-General and Minister for Justice.”
He argued that even if an appeal notice had been filed while he was Attorney-General, it would have become “completely immaterial” because no further action was taken until the NDC returned to power.
“Thus, the Republic had to do nothing in 2024 in terms of the conduct of that appeal,” he wrote.
Dame said his responsibility after Tamakloe-Attionu’s conviction was to secure her extradition so she could serve her sentence in Ghana. He said he therefore pursued an extradition request, which was upheld by an Order of the United States District Court of Nevada on 9 April 2026.
That order, he said, confirmed the extradition and committed Tamakloe-Attionu to custody pending her transfer by the US Secretary of State.
Dame said Tamakloe-Attionu’s lawyers obtained permission from the Court of Appeal to file written submissions on 10 February 2026 and submitted them two days later, after he had left office.
He added that prosecuting State Attorneys were surprised when they received the submissions on 16 February because they had not previously been informed that proceedings were pending. They subsequently prepared submissions opposing the appeal and secured permission to file them on 9 April 2026.
“In their written submissions, the Principal State Attorney repeated her complaints about an incomplete record of appeal, an omission from the record of all the exhibits tendered by the Prosecution at the trial and the fact that they “became aware of the instant proceeding… after the Court had directed the Parties to file their written submissions”.”
Dame described the acquittal as something that “smacks of an orchestration to clear” Tamakloe-Attionu of “felonious acts.”
He also accused the current Attorney-General, Dr Dominic Ayine, of bias, pointing to his recent decision to enter nolle prosequi in cases involving prominent NDC members.
“The development is consistent with the predilection of the Attorney-General to discontinue all cases which were being prosecuted against leading members and affiliates of the NDC.
“It highlights the growing perception of Ghana’s current justice system – two sets of law for two sets of people. Equality before the law exists only in theory and is not lived practically. The Sedina Scandal is the closest Ghana has been to a re-enactment of the Woyome Scandal,” Dame observed.
He called on Ghanaians to demand greater accountability from a government that introduced the ORAL policy as part of its anti-corruption agenda, while discontinuing criminal cases involving leading members.
He said the Attorney-General “must be held to very high standards” when prosecuting cases.
“A justice system in which political friends face no accountability and time-honoured rules are compromised for their comfort whilst political opponents are treated like second-class citizens and struggle for their basic rights and freedoms to be respected in criminal trials reflects poorly on the State,” he concluded.
