A chief who shot at his rival chief at A-Lang, a Muslim community in Accra, has been sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment by an Accra Circuit Court.

Without any provocation, the convict, Adam Fuseini Walla, shot at his rival chief, Mohammed Wazari, on June 26, 2016, during Eid prayers, thereby disrupting the prayers.

However, he missed his target after two attempts but succeeded in shooting a horse belonging to the complainant. Unfortunately, the horse sustained fatal wounds and died the next day.

Subsequently, Mr. Walla was arrested after the incident and a pump action gun was retrieved from him by police officers who were at the prayer ground.

According to the police, the convict was taken to the Odorkor police station but managed to escape through the help of about 50 heavily-built men, who stormed the premises of the police station and whisked him away.

Mr. Walla was later arraigned with three counts of unlawful discharge of arms, cruelty to animals and escaping from lawful custody.

He pleaded not guilty to all the charges leaving the onus on the prosecutor to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The prosecutor called four witnesses while the convict also opened his defence and called one witness.

In his evidence, Mr. Walla told the court that he has a pump action gun which he usually loads from the house before moving out but because he was running late that day, he could not load it.

According to him, upon getting to the prayer ground, he decided to load the gun and in the process of doing so, one Mallam Hamza came to call him by putting his hand on his shoulder and incidentally the gun fired and hit one of three horses tied to a pole.

He said he did not know the horses belonged to the complainant.

After trial, the court presided over by His Honour Aboagye Tandoh held that the prosecution led evidence beyond reasonable doubt and subsequently convicted the accused on all three counts.

Mr. Walla was sentenced to 12 months of hard labour in prison on the count of escaping from lawful custody.

He was also fined GH¢60 and GH¢300 for the count of unlawful discharge of arms and cruelty to animals, respectively.