Three persons, including the victim's father, who are standing trial for their roles in a case in which a porter, Mahart Seidu, was chained in a Walewale-bound Benz bus have been refused bail.

An Accra circuit court, presided over by Mrs Georgina Mensah-Datsah, refused to grant the bail application, saying there were no reasonable grounds to grant the application.

The case has been adjourned to Thursday, August, 2, 2007.

The accused are the girl's father, Amadu Seidu, Nabila Banrnarugu, her uncle, and Ibrahim Tia, a loading boy at the Tema Station. 'IJ1e accused persons; are facing five counts of kidnapping, assault by imprisonment, conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to assault and compulsion of marriage.

Earlier, Constable S. Quarcoopome, testifying before the court as the first prosecution witness, had told the court that he did not give any statement to either the press or the police on the day the incident happened.

During cross-examination, counsel for the accused, Mr Kwabena Mensah, had asked why Constable Quarcoopome gave a statement to the police only on July 23, 2007, when the incident occurred on July 15. He argued that the statement had been coloured by events that happened between July 15 and 23, 2007.

A fourth person also standing trial in connection with the case, Zingey Haruna, the driver of the bus in which Mahart was chained, whose counsel was not in court, also questioned Quarcoopome whether when he arrived at the scene at the Tema Station, he (Haruna) was present. The Constable responded in the negative.
Haruna is on bail.

In a related development, a 32-year-old farmer has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in hard labour by an Accra circuit court for defiling a three-year-old girl.

Mensah Adjetey pleaded guilty to one count of defilement of a female child under 16 and was convicted on his own plea.

Adjetey, however, explained that he committed the crime under the influence of alcohol.

Presenting the facts of the case before the court, Police Chief Inspector Lawrence Gbele said the convict lived in the same vicinity with the victim's family at Samsam, a fanning community in the Ga West District.

He said on July 8, this year, the victim was playing in her aunt's salon when Adjetey lured her into his room and forcibly had sex with her.


Daily Graphic