Daniel Asiedu
A High Court in Accra has ordered Daniel Asiedu, alias Sexy Don Don, who is standing trial for the murder of the late JB Danquah-Adu, the then Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North in the Eastern Region, to mount a defence in the trial.
The court, presided over by Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, gave the order yesterday after holding that the prosecution has made a prima facie case against him to warrant him to open his defence.
Vincent Bosso, who was facing a charge of conspiracy to commit robbery at the home of the late MP which led to his death, was however acquitted and discharged by the court.
Daniel Asiedu is before the court facing charges of murder and conspiracy to commit robbery, while Vincent Bosso was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery.
The two had been remanded into police custody and later prison custody for the past eight years. They all pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against them.
The prosecution led by Sefakor Batse, a Principal State Attorney at the Office of the Attorney General, closed it case yesterday after the eighth witness, the case investigator, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Augustus Nkrumah was discharged.
Justice Marfo then ordered Daniel Asiedu to file his witness statement and that of any witness he intends to call by April 15, 2024.
The late JB Danquah-Adu was murdered in his home on February 8, 2016 at Shiashie in Accra, and Daniel Asiedu was later arrested as the prime suspect in the bizarre killing of the late legislator.
The case investigator, during his testimony, told the court that Daniel Asiedu killed the late MP, adding that there is enough evidence to show that the accused was at the scene where the MP was murdered.
DNA Exhibits
ASP Nkrumah on August 13, 2022, tendered in evidence nine items relating to the murder of the then MP.
The items which include those picked from the crime scene as well as DNA swabs from House Number 10 (a house opposite the late MP’s across the street) returned DNA results that matched the DNA of Daniel Asiedu.
A blood-stained T-shirt with the inscription ‘Hemisphere’ which both Asiedu and his girlfriend confirmed as belonging to accused and what he wore on the day of the incident also returned a DNA result that matched Daniel Asiedu’s 100 percent.
A blood-stained cup which the accused used to fetch water from a drum in a house opposite that of the late MP’s also returned a DNA result that matched Daniel Asiedu’s 100 percent.
Daniel Asiedu, according to the prosecution and a witness in the case, used the cup to fetch water in a drum to wash himself in the opposite house after committing the crime.
The other exhibit is blood-stained bedsheet found in the late MP’s bedroom which had the DNA results of the deceased.
‘Admission’
ASP Nkrumah during his testimony also tendered a pendrive containing a video in which Asiedu ‘admitted’ to stabbing the late MP during a confrontation when he went to his residence with the intention to rob.
He demonstrated how he went into the late MP’s bedroom through his window, in a robbery that led to the death of the MP.
The admission was contained in a video recorded during the interrogation of the accused and another which was a reconstruction of the crime scene in the late MP’s house.
The court, prior to admitting the pendrive containing the videos, heard how Daniel Asiedu admitted that the catapult and metal cutter found in the late MP’s bedroom were his (accused), and his admission that he uses the catapult in driving away dogs when he enters a house to commit a crime while the metal cutter is used in cutting burglar proof in case he meets a window that is burglar-proofed.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak