Detective Sergeant Christian Adzakpo, a service photographer of the Ghana Police Service on Wednesday, said that although there were bruises and marks of assault on the corpse of Alhaji Issa Mobilla, he did not know where or who inflicted them on it. He was testifying as the first prosecution witness in the murder case involving soldiers accused of murdering Alhaji Issa MobilIa, a former Northern Regional Chairman of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), on December 9, 2004. The accused persons are Corporal Yaw Appiah, Private Eric Modzaka and Private Seth Goka. Goka, who is on the run, is being tried in absentia. Appiah and Modzaka have pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiracy and murder of Alhaji MobilIa. Led in evidence by Mrs Merley Wood, a Chief State Attorney, the witness recounted how he became associated with the case and said that he knew Issa Mobilla, but did not know the accused persons. He said that in December, 2004, he was stationed at the Regional Headquarters of the Ghana Police Service, Tamale, and that on December 11of that year, he was on duty at the station when the investigator on duty, Detective Sergeant George Mensah, told him that Alhaji Mobilla was dead and that his body had been deposited at the Tamale Government Hospital. The witness said the investigator asked him to accompany him (investigator) to the hospital’s mortuary, to which he obliged. On arrival at the hospital, the corpse of the deceased was removed from the refrigerator. “I conducted an inspection on the body and found out that there were bruises or marks of assault from the neck to the toe. After the inspection of the body, I took photographs from various angles of the body,” Sergeant Adzakpo said, explaining that he took seven shots of photographs, which he later processed and handed them over to the investigator. The photographs, he said, were endorsed by him. They were tendered in evidence without objection from the defence. Sergeant Adzakpo said that on December 17, 2004, he was in the office in the morning when a pathologist was sent from the Kumasi Government Hospital to conduct an autopsy on the corpse of Mobilla and, therefore, together with some other policemen, he went to the mortuary of the Tamale Government Hospital. He said while the pathologist was performing the autopsy, he took photographs which he handed to the investigator and, he had no idea as to what the investigator did with those photographs. Lead counsel for the defence, Mr Thaddeus Sory, during cross-examination, asked whether before December 11, 2004, witness had met the late Alhaji Mobilla to which he responded in the negative. When counsel asked the witness whether his first time of seeing Mobilla was at the mortuary, the witness said that the late Alhaji MobilIa often visited the police station any time any relative of his was involved in trouble. “In fact, I knew him because we played cards together at the barracks,” Sgt Adzakpo said and insisted that his initial response was correct when counsel said that was incorrect. The witness said that the procedure for taking photographs was to inspect the body before shots were taken, but he did not know where the bruises or marks of assault were inflicted. Asked whether or not those marks could be inflicted at the mortuary or the police station, the witness said that he did not know. The jurors asked the witness whether he saw Mobilla when he went to the police station, but he replied in the negative and maintained that he did not know how those marks were inflicted on the body. Hearing continues on July 11, 2011. According to the prosecution, Alhaji Mobilla died in a military custody three hours after he had been handed over to the accused persons who were on duty that day. The chief pathologist’s report revealed that the deceased was sent to the hospital dead and that he died as a result of collapsed lungs, fractured ribs and severe abrasions. Appiah and Modzaka, who have been in custody for the past five years, were sent from Tamale to face trial in Accra. They were put before Mr Justice Senyo Dzamefe in early 2010. Nine witnesses were called before the foreman of the jury fell ill. His ailment necessitated Mr Justice Dzamefe, who had then been promoted to the Court of Appeal, to replace the foreman. That action sparked a sharp disagreement from counsel for the accused persons, who argued that the replacement of the juror in law meant that the case had started afresh. Counsel, therefore, argued that because the trial judge had failed to produce any document to prove that he had been re-appointed to hear the case, he should recuse himself from the case. Following the judge’s refusal to recuse him, counsel went to the Supreme Court and prayed it to prohibit the judge. The Supreme Court, on March 16, 2011, quashed Mr Justice Dzamefe’s decision to continue sitting on the case, after the foreman of the seven-member jury had been replaced following his ill-health. In a unanimous decision, the court prohibited the judge from further hearing the case on the grounds that he lacked the jurisdiction to hear afresh the suit against the accused persons after he was elevated to the Court of Appeal. Subsequently, a new seven-member jury was constituted to hear afresh the case before the judge, Mr Justice Mustapha Habib Logo. Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana