COURT SENTENCES 10 TO DEATH (PAGE 3, AUGUST 26, 2010)

TEN out of 11 persons accused of murdering Anthony Yeboah-Boateng, the former Administrator of the Goaso Government Hospital at Atronie, were yesterday sentenced to death by hanging.
The Sunyani High Court, presided over by Mr Justice Godwin Gabor, however, acquitted and discharged the fourth accused person, Kwaku Agyeman Badu, alias Wakuu, 54, who until the case was a driver of the Metro Mass Transit Limited.
In addition, the 10 convicts are to serve 20 years’ imprisonment each with hard labour, but the sentences are to run concurrently.
They are Douglas Afriyie, alias Dougie; Stephen Donkor, alias Kofi Ankama; Kwasi Nyantekyi, alias Nana Kusi; Adama Hamidu; James Dankwah; Kwame Yeboah Addae, alias Akolo; Kwadwo Awuah, alias Koo Wua or “I see”; Kwame Anokye; Emmanuel Kwaku Lartey, alias Adjetey, and Kwame Krah, alias Koo Kraa.
They were charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit murder, contrary to Section 23(1) and 46 of the Criminal Offence Act 1960 (Act 29), murder, contrary to Section 46 and causing unlawful damage, contrary to Section 172 (2).
The decision of the court, followed a unanimous verdict of guilt returned by a seven-member jury after about one hour deliberation.
Immediately after their conviction and sentence, Mr Justice Gabor said “the accused persons, having been convicted and sentenced, have one month to appeal. It is their right and it is also my duty to inform them as such”.
Before going to deliberate on the matter, the trial judge drew the attention of the jury to the evidence they had heard and the law involved and its application to the evidence, saying, “You are the judges of facts, so please consider yourselves free from the comments or observations made by me in the course of summing up of this case because you are not bound by them but I am within my right to make such observation.”
“Your verdict must be based on the evidence upon your own consideration and the evidence heard in this court and in the direction given on the law involved. You are therefore to disregard whatever you might have heard outside and your verdict must be unanimous, this matter being a murder trial,” he said.
Mr Justice Gabor said the general principle of the law in criminal trial was that the prosecution must prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt.
It is recalled that on April 8, 2007, Mr Yeboah-Boateng, who was also the former presiding member of the Asunafo North District Assembly, in the company of his wife and two other women, was travelling from Sunyani to Goaso after picking a corpse of a relative from the Regional Hospital, Sunyani to the Goaso Government Hospital mortuary.
When they got to Atronie with the corpse, the convicts, together with others, blocked the road with rocks and cement blocks, forcing Yeboah-Boateng to stop.
The convicts, together with the others, rushed on Yeboah-Boateng and accused him of being a ritual murderer because he was carrying a corpse in his car.
Before the deceased could offer any explanation, the convicts pulled him out of the vehicle, clubbed him to death and attempted to set his body and car ablaze.
They then vandalised his car and the corpse and bolted from the town.
Since May 2, 2008, the Sunyani High has been hearing the case of the 11 after the Attorney General’s (A-G’s) Department had recommended that they be tried for their alleged involvement in the criminal offence.