Accra, (Greater Accra) 17 Sept.,

Burial took place in Accra yesterday of Alhaji Bashiru Kwaw-Swanzy, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in the First Republic. A statement issued by the Attorney-General's Department in Accra today said Alhaji Swanzy died on Monday, September 15 at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital after a short illness. He was 77 and left behind two wives, eight children and six grandchildren. Alhaji Kwaw-Swanzy, educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester among others, was called to the English bar at the Lincoln's Inn and set up practice in the Gold Coast in 1955. Before becoming Attorney-General of Ghana in 1962, Alhaji Kwaw-Swanzy accomplished with commendable success two important international legal assignments on behalf of the Ghana government in Zanzibar and the Gambia. Born as Bernard Edward Kwaw-Swanzy, he converted to the Islamic faith while in prison after the change of government in February, 1966. During his time in Zanzibar in 1961, Alhaji Swanzy successfully obtained the acquittal of about 80 members of the Afro- Shirazi Party who had been indicted for murder in the riots which erupted in that country in 1960. In recognition of his previous services, the Zanzibar government appointed him Attorney-General in 1983. In 1962, Alhaji Kwaw-Swanzy secured the acquittal of his classmate at Achimota School, the former Gambian President, Sir Dauda Jawara and several members of his Progressive Peoples' Party for electoral malpractices and fraud.