FARMER REMANDED FOR MURDER (MIRROR, PAGE 31, DEC 7)

From Samuel Duodu, Sunyani.

A Sunyani District Magistrate Court has remanded into prison custody Ernest Kwame Awuah, alias President, who beheaded his seven-year-old nephew, Charles Sey at Abesim, near Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region three weeks ago.
The plea of the accused, charged for murder was not taken in court and would reappear before the court presided over by Mr Frank Y. Gbeddy on December 17, 2009.
The Presiding Magistrate, Mr Gbeddy after listening to the facts of the case granted the request of the prosecution to remand the accused in prison custody to enable the police conduct further investigations into the case and after that, forward the docket to the Attorney General’s (AGs) office for study and advice.
A brief facts of the case as presented in court by Chief Inspector Alex Ofosu were that the deceased aged seven was a pupil of the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church Primary School at Abesim, while the accused was a farmer. The deceased was the son of the accused person’s younger brother who was also deceased and both the accused and his deceased nephew lived in the same house at Abesim.
The prosecutor told the court that the accused had a farm on a piece of land about 150 metres away from their house.
On November 14, 2009 at about 9am while the accused was working on the farm, the deceased and two of his play mates went to his farm and started harassing him (accused).
Chief Inspector Ofosu said an eye witnessed indicated that the deceased poured away the maize the accused was sowing (planting) and fetched sand into the bowl.
He said based on this, the accused chased away the deceased and his two friends were able to run away from the farm while the deceased fell on the ground. The accused butchered him to death by slashing his throat and pierced his right eye and ear.
The two boys, who rushed to the house, informed their parents who with the assistance of others arrested the accused and handed him over to the police.
Chief Inspector Ofosu told the court that the case was still under investigation and so the police could not keep the accused and therefore they decided to present him for the court for him to be remanded for one month to enable the police conclude their investigation.
It would be recalled that the Daily Graphic on the front page of its Monday edition, November 16, 2009 published a story with the headline “Bloody Weekend: Boy 6, beheaded at Abesim, Woman, 30, killed at Okorase. 4 Robbers gunned down in Ksi”.
The story read “The grisly murder of a famous business woman, 30, near Koforidua, the gruesome beheading of a six-year-old boy near Sunyani and the gunning down of four armed robbers in Kumasi in a shootout with the police marked a weekend of blood and horror for some residents of those parts of the country”.
It started further that at Abesim, near Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region, hundreds of residents besieged the crime scene, eager to catch a glimpse of Ernest Kwame Awuah, alias President, who was on display with the mutilated body of his six-year-old nephew, Charles Sey.