Stop looking at me with those eyes — judge warns
A Kumasi Circuit Court judge on Tuesday gave a stern warning to relatives of a couple standing trial at the court to desist from watching her with menacing eyes or be walked out of the court room.
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Mrs Helen V. Amuah, the presiding judge, pointed a male relative out from the public at the court room and warned him that if he continued to look at her with those eyes, “I have the power to walk you out of my court.”
She said “I have a thick skin and have seen worse than this” and advised the relatives to stop their antics with the purpose of intimidating the court and the prosecution.
Nana Oduro Oti and his wife, Rita Oduro Oti, are standing trial for causing harm to a two-year-old boy, Samuel Kwarteng, who was left in their care by the boy’s father.
It all started when the presiding judge stopped the counsel for the couple from asking a witness in the case, to mention names of deities and gods allegedly invoked by Nana Oti to curse his tenants for allegedly informing the police about the treatment being meted out to their foster son.
The counsel maintained that since the witness was unable to remember the number of the deities and gods invoked, at least she should be able to at least mention one.
However, the Judge said she was not going to allow that question and identified two relatives of the couple in court, whom she said were in the habit of threatening witnesses with curses.
The judge was of the view that since issues of curses, were, based on one’s faith and personal belief, the witness should not be forced to mention any, particularly if the witness believed that it could have some effect on them.
Nana Oti was alleged to have been infuriated by the invitation from the police over an injury suffered by the little boy.
The relatives of the couple, according to the judge, had constantly been threatening witnesses in the case, including the staff of the Attorney General Department handling the case to the extent that the court had to provide security for the witnesses and prosecutors out of the court premises to ensure their safety any time they had to be in court.
It is a common practice in the Ashanti Region for feuding parties in a case to invoke the dreaded Antoa deity on each other.
It is believed that the deity works faster and secures justice for anyone who runs to it for assistance.
The invocation of curses has been employed by people to cow people into submission or to heed to their demands by threatening to invoke curses on them.
Recently, the young man believed to have died at the hands of the policemen at Krofom who arrested him on suspicion of being an armed robber, Richmond Osei, better known as Tawiah, was buried with a brand new machete, a broom, cartridges and a knife as weapons to enable him avenge his death.
The family of the deceased also invoked curses on the policemen who effected his arrest that led to his death.