A tailor apprentice, Emmanuel Boateng, has appeared at the Kuntanase Magistrate Court charged with the murder of a second-year Biological Sciences student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
Kwaku Adu Gyamfi allegedly died from sharp force trauma wounds to his neck during an attack at a building site at Sewua, a community near Esereso in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti Region on Friday, April 22, 2022.
Emmanuel Boateng, 25, is accused of attacking the KNUST student, who had lent him GHȼ100, with a club after luring Adu Gyamfi to the uncompleted building around 9:30am.
The Kuntanase Magistrate Court, presided over by Francis Ana-Am Asikiya, remanded him to prison custody when he appeared before the court, with the provisional charge of murder, contrary to Section 46 of Criminal Act 1960 Amended Act 646 of 2003, to re-appear on May 9, 2022.
Emmanuel Boateng’s plea was not taken.
Presenting the facts of the case, police prosecutor, DSP Eric Akwaboah informed the court that Kwaku Adu Gyamfi, until his death, was a resident at Nevada Hostel at Ayeduase, a suburb of Kumasi, and a friend of the suspect.
According to him, on that fateful day, Adu Gyamfi visited his parents at Sewua-Esaaso Kwabrafo near Esereso where he attended the wedding ceremony of his sister, and was due to return to school on Saturday, April 23, 2022.
During the period, the suspect borrowed GHȼ100 from Adu Gyamfi with a promise to pay back on time before he left for school, but upon realising he could not fulfil his promise, hatched a plan to kill his friend in order to avoid embarrassment.
The prosecutor narrated that the accused person on Friday, April 22, 2022, laid ambush after hiding a big stick about one and half miles away from the deceased person’s house.
DSP Akwaboah revealed that, at about 8:00am, Adu Gyamfi was sent out by his mother to buy her porridge, and suspect accosted him when he stepped out, adding that Emmanuel Boateng managed to convince the KNUST student to accompany him to the building site where he had hidden the stick.
The prosecutor said the accused person had told Adu Gyamfi he wanted to use his (deceased’s) iPhone to take pictures, which the friend obliged without hesitation.
Upon getting to the crime scene, the accused requested his friend to wait for him, and while Adu Gyamfi was looking away, Emmanuel Boateng attacked him from behind, hitting his neck with a stick.
Emmanuel subsequently dispossessed Adu Gyamfi of his iPhone 11 Max Phone valued at GHȼ3,500 and fled the scene, while leaving his friend to his fate.
At about 7:00pm same day, DSP Akwaboah said Adu Gyamfi’s mother became alarmed when she realised her son had not returned home and his mobile phone was switched off.
She lodged a complaint of a missing person at the Feyiase police station, where officers who had learnt of the murdered case, showed the woman pictures of the deceased taken from the crime scene.
The woman identified the pictures of the lifeless body as that of her son. She informed the police that the suspect was seen with her son in the morning.
This led to the arrest of Emmanuel Boateng, who admitted the crime in his caution statement to the police and subsequent retrieval of the deceased’s mobile phone from his house.
FROM David Afum, Kumasi