A docket on the case in which a 22-year-old man is being tried for strangulating a seven-year-old girl to death has resurfaced at the Attorney-General’s Department months after it mysteriously disappeared.
Francisca Tutu Mensah, a Principal State Attorney, yesterday, told an Accra Central Magistrate Court that the file got lost at the A-G’s Department although it was forwarded to the State Prosecutor.
She stated that the Director for Public Prosecution (DPP), on the advice of the AG, had instructed her to take a two-week adjournment to commit the accused for trial.
Ms. Mensah disclosed that the accused, Lucas Agboyie, aka Gabriel or Kojo, a mason apprentice would be tried summarily for defilement.
Banter
The trial magistrate, Ebenezer K. Ansah wondered how the AG was able to trace the docket.
On that the prosecutor said a copy of the file was requested, compelling the judge to ask why the AG does not do same in other cases.
The judge threatened to discharge all accused persons whose cases had been in the court over three years.
Ms. Mensah pleaded with the judge not to do so because the AG’s Department was under staffed, stressing that the department has only 150 lawyers in the criminal division.
On his part, the judge stated that his court also has one interpreter who even shuttles between two courts.
He said, “We have allowed a certain man known as the system to dictate to us.”
It would be recalled that another judge Worlanyo Kotoku at the last sitting expressed worry over the delay on the part of the AG in the matter.
He stated that there was no need for the case to delayed especially when the accused had been consistent with his narration of events in respect of the murder.
There was also no prosecutor at the court as the investigator repeated his three-month old mantra that the substantive investigator was indisposed.
Gabriel had shocked the court when he gave a vivid account on how he killed the girl and had sex with the corpse for three hours.
He said he murdered the girl after smoking wee, adding that he informed the victim, Ruth Amankwah that he wanted to have sex with her.
Lucas, aka Sympathy or Sky Lover, told the court that the deceased tried to escape but he pulled her back.
He said he ignored the pleas from Ruth to spare her life and strangulated her until she died and had sex with the body in his metal container at Kubekro No. 1, near Atadeka at Ashaiman, a suburb of Accra on April 19, 2015.
The plea of Sympathy, who has been charged with murder contrary to sections 46 of Act 29/60, has not been taken.
Hearing continues on October 17.
Ruth was a class one pupil of the Meshach Academy School at Zenu also in Ashaiman in Accra who lived with her mother at Kubekro where the accused also lived about 200 metres away from them.
At 8 am on Sunday, April 19, 2015, the mother of the deceased prepared porridge and sent her with GH¢20 to buy bread from a nearby shop for their breakfast.
The parents became alarmed and searched for her in the area after the deceased failed to come home after a long period of time.
An informant told the complainant that she saw Sympathy pulling the deceased into his metal container.
The team found Ruth’s naked body lying in a supine position on an old student’s mattress with blood oozing from her mouth and nostrils.
The accused disclosed that he killed Ruth voluntarily but later mentioned one Baba Ali as the one who contracted him to murder the victim for money, house and a car.
Sympathy has however failed to lead the police to Baba Ali.
He took the police to a wrong house and pointed at a car that the said Baba promised him.
By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson
jeffdegraft44@yahoo.com