Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States, Victor Smith, has disclosed that embattled former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta relied on videos of protests held outside the United States Embassy in Accra to support his claim that his life would be in danger should he return to Ghana.
According to Victor Smith, Ken Ofori-Atta presented the videos as part of his immigration case, where he argued that he would not be safe in Ghana and might not receive a fair trial.
Speaking in an interview on Channel One TV on November 2, 2026, Victor Smith stated, “When people went to picket around the US Embassy; if you remember the day that he was arrested, people went there demanding that Ken be brought back, so those videos were used to say that his life would be in danger. He wouldn’t get a fair trial”.
Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States explained that Ofori-Atta’s immigration case was separate from Ghana’s efforts to extradite him to face prosecution, adding that the stay of deportation granted to the former minister did not bring the extradition process to an end, adding that it remained active.
He explained, “There are two issues here and people don’t understand. There’s the immigration aspect, which has granted him a stay, then there’s the extradition aspect that is being done by the Justice Department”.
“I was here when the Attorney General and the EOCO came here. We went to meetings on that one. They are working on it. It’s too early to determine that we have a case to have him,” he stated.
Victor Smith added, “Now that has to do with us bringing a case against an individual, in this case Ken Ofori-Atta, who has committed a crime, has done something wrong to our nation, and we want to prosecute him. If we make a good case to the Department of Justice, they will let us have him. It’s much the same way that we let them have Abu Trica”.
“As far as I’m concerned, the government of Ghana is still pursuing Ofori-Atta’s extradition, yes,” he concluded.
It will be recalled that in January 2026, pressure group Arise Ghana staged a protest outside the United States Embassy in Accra, demanding that former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta be returned to Ghana.
The Arise Ghana group, dressed in red and black, gathered outside the embassy with placards bearing inscriptions such as “Bring Ken Home” and “No Hiding Place for Corruption.”
Meanwhile, the Accra High Court has given the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) four more weeks to complete efforts to serve former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta and his former Chief of Cabinet, Ernest Darko Akore, with summons in the United States.
On September 29, the prosecution told the court that a team that travelled to the United States to engage the US Department of Justice over the service of the summons was yet to return to Ghana.
The prosecution therefore asked the High Court for additional time to enable it to complete the necessary processes, a request the court granted.
On August 27, 2026, during the previous hearing, the case was adjourned to September 29, 2026, to allow the prosecution time to serve Ofori-Atta and Akore with the necessary processes in the United States.
The High Court has since adjourned the case involving Ofori-Atta and seven others to October 29, 2026.
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