One Kasoa teenage ‘ritual money’ murder suspect is 15-years - Court told
It has been established that one of the teenagers accused of killing a 10-year–old boy at Kasoa, is 15-years-old.
Police told the Ofaakor District Court Tuesday that school records show that the one who allegedly hit the late Ishmael was born on September 1, 2005.
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“The hospital where he was born could not provide any records to show that the first accused was born there, so we went to his school,” Chief Inspector Ernest Agbo told the court.
The second accused person – Nicolas Kini is 18.
Chief Inspector Agbo prayed the court to remand the two into police custody as the police awaits advice on the case from the Attorney–General’s (A-G) Department
What does this mean?
With the ages of the two established , it means first accused is a juvenile and therefore would be tried under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2003 (Act 653), while Kini will be tried as an adult under the Criminal and other Offences (Procedure) Act, 1960 (Act 30).
State of shock
The entire Lamptey Millis area was thrown into a state of shock and mourning in the mid-morning of Holy Saturday, April 3, 2021 when news emerged that two teenagers had killed a young boy.
The incident flooded various social media networks after the arrest of the suspects.
The two teenagers who allegedly killed the 10-year-old boy at Coca Cola, near Lamptey, a suburb of Kasoa in the Central Region, had initially planned to kidnap him to demand a ransom of GH¢5,000, according to the prosecutor.
Chief Inspector Agbo, said the first accused - a mason labourer, and Nicholas Kini Kwame, 18, a student and second accused, had planned to take the money and add Ishmael Mensah Abdallah, the deceased, to it to present to a spiritualist for rituals.
Plan
"The accused initially planned to kidnap deceased Ishmael and demand ransom of GH¢5,000 from his mother, which they would add to send him for the rituals.
On the arrival of Ishmael (at the uncompleted facility), they realised that kidnapping him would be a difficult task and so they decided to kill him,” Chief Inspector Agbo said.
The accused persons were arrested following the murder of Ishmael, a Class Four pupil, for ritual purposes.
The two have been remanded in police custody for further investigations.
Facts
The facts of the case as presented by Chief Inspector Agbo in court are that the two teenagers, who lived at Lamptey, had been friends since 2008.
He said for some time now the first accused had been watching television channels which entertained Mallams and other spiritualists to promote their prowess in making people instant millionaires.
The accused, according to the prosecutor, made his intention known to Nicholas, who advised that there was a certain spiritualist in the Volta Region who could do it for them.
"The second accused, who does not own a phone, provided the phone number of the said spiritualist to the first accused, who has access to his mother's phone.
"After contacting the said spiritualist, he agreed to help if only they could provide a human being and GH¢5,000 for the rituals," he said.
Chief Inspector Agbo explained that on Saturday, April 3, 2021, the accused persons settled on Ishmael, 10 years, 11 months, the son of the complainant, Mr Frank Mensah Abdallah, adding that the second accused then went to hide in an uncompleted building near the first accused person's house where they planned to carry out their operation.
"The accused persons armed themselves with a club, a piece of cement block and shovel as their weapons, and the first accused, who is close to Ishmael, lured him to the uncompleted building with convincing words that his friend was selling a video game..
Killing
Nicholas, the prosecutor further said, then picked the club and hit Ishmael hard on the back of the neck, while the first accused "used the cement block to hit his head, killing him instantly".
In the course of the act, he said, the first accued's younger sister, eight, sensed that something was going on and so she walked towards the direction of the uncompleted building but was driven away by her elder brother.
He said after murdering Ishmael, the accused persons dug a shallow grave, buried the deceased and left the scene, so that they would return in the night to convey the body to the Volta Region for the rituals.
"But luck eluded them when the first accused person's sister went to inform her father, who is the stepfather, that something had gone amiss in the uncompleted building.
The father went to the scene and saw that the place had been disturbed, and when he decided to remove the surface sand, he found the body of the deceased covered with sand," he said, adding that the father quickly confronted the first accused, who confessed and mentioned the second accused as his accomplice.
Chief Inspector Agbo said the accused persons were subsequently arrested and handed over to the police.
He said efforts were ongoing to arrest the spiritualist.
He told the court that first accused person's parents could not determine his exact age and so they would need some time to do that