Ex-Soldier, Pastor jailed for man's death over alleged fake GHc50 claims

A retired Military Officer, Joseph Abusah, and a Pastor, Benjamin Kofi Agbetiafah, have been convicted by the High Court in Accra for manslaughter over a misunderstanding of GH₵50 alleged fake money leading to the death of one Solomon Dapaah.

The two were found guilty of conspiracy and manslaughter after a seven-member jury panel had returned guilty verdicts.

For conspiracy, the jury returned a majority 5-2 verdict, while on the substantive charge of manslaughter, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict.

Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, a Justice of the Court of Appeal who was presiding over the court as an additional High Court judge, sentenced them to six months each on both counts, which are to run concurrently.

This was after the Court had considered mitigation factors from defence lawyers and the aggravating circumstances of the case from Yvonne Adomako-Yarchie, a State Attorney.

The brief facts of the case are that A1, Joseph Abusah, is a pensioner while A2 is a pastor. They both lived at New Abladjei, a suburb of Agbogba.

One Comfort Agbetiafah is the mother of A2 and he lived with his mother in the same house.

On March 1, 2018, A1 visited A2, while they were conversing, two men on board a Nissan Micra with registration number GM 4907-12 driven by the deceased Solomon Dapaah aged 32, stopped by the A2’s mother’s provisions shop.

He bought a 7-liter bottle of Fanta at 10 Ghana cedis and paid with a GH₵50.00 note.

After the deceased was given change of GH₵40.00, A2’s mother suspected that the 50-cedi note was fake and raised an alarm after the deceased had driven off.

A1 and A2 chased after the deceased’s taxi with a Nissan pick-up with registration number GT 3098-P driven by A1 to a spot at the outskirts of New Abiadjei where the taxi could not go further.

A1 crossed the deceased’s taxi with the Nissan pickup to prevent him from moving. The other occupant in the deceased’s taxi managed to escape, but in an attempt to escape the deceased, got trapped in a barbed wire fence.

A1 and A2 pulled him from the barbed wire fence, and in the ensuing struggle, they beat him up until he became unconscious.

They tied his hands and legs with a nylon rope and sent him to the Agbogba Police station in the bucket of the pickup to lodge a complaint.

The police, on seeing the swollen face of the deceased and blood oozing from the mouth, escorted A1 and A2 and the deceased to the Agbogba Clinic, but the deceased was pronounced dead on arrival.

A post-mortem examination was performed on the deceased on 13th March 2018 by Supt/Dr. Osei Owusu Afriyie at the Police Hospital, Accra.

The Pathologist gave the cause of death as (i) Severe Head Injury and (ii) Lynching, which is an unnatural manner of death.