Murder of Achimota School student: Convict freed by court
Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson
The Accra High Court has quashed the three year jail term of a 17-year-old student found guilty of shooting and killing a female colleague by the Juvenile Court.
According to the High Court, presided over by Mr Justice Kofi Dorgu, there was a miscarriage of justice because the juvenile court failed to ask for a Social Enquiry report on the 17 year old before passing sentence.
Such a breach, the High Court held was in violation of the the Juvenile Justice Act, 2003 (ACT 653).
The High Court faulted the decision of the juvenile Court to sentence a 17-year-old for killing a final year high school student of Achimota School because the trial was not done within the mandatory six months as required by the Juveniles Act.
The convict was found guilty for manslaughter by the Accra Juvenile court in September, 2017.
He was 16 years [minor] at the time of the incident on January 4, 2017 which resulted in the case being heard in camera.
He is said to have gone for his father’s gun which was under a bed with the intent of shooting in the air, but he ended up killing his friend, Lily Asigbetse who was also a third year student of the same school.
The facts as narrated in court were that on January 4, this year, at about 2pm the deceased Lily who lived at Cantonments visited the convict at Community eight in Tema.
While there, prosecution said the convict went to his father's room and picked up his father's single barrel gun and shot the victim in the abdomen.
The convict told the police that he intended shooting into the air however the gravity of the gun changed course and hit the deceased.
According to the prosecution, a neighbor heard the gun shot and went to the scene only to see the victim lying in a pool of blood.
The victim was taken to the Port Clinic in Tema. However due to the condition of the victim, she was transferred to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra where she died on admission.