A Togolese national, Lucas Agbadzi is in the grips of the Ashaiman police for purportedly strangling a 7-year-old girl to death at Atadeka, a community in the Kpone-Katamanso District of the Greater Accra Region.

The 20-year-old mason apprentice, who resides in the same vicinity with the deceased, Ruth Ankomah, is alleged to have defiled the minor before throttling her to death in a container which he uses as his abode.

The body of the deceased has been deposit­ed at the Police Hospital in Accra for autopsy.

When Daily Guide arrived in the area, the body of the girl was lying on a student mattress and covered with a mosquito net.

The deceased was found naked with blood oozing from her mouth.

Uncle of Ruth Ankom­ah, Justice Yeboah, told Daily Guide that his niece left the house to buy bread for breakfast but did not return.

According to him, a search party was formed by the family to look for her whiles her parents lodged a formal complaint at the police station.

Mr. Yeboah added that upon their return from the police station they were informed about the body of a girl lying in the container.

"We went to check and saw Ruth dead in the container of Lucas," he said.

Superintendent William Daah, Crime Officer of the Ashaiman Divisional Police Headquarters, confirmed the incident to Daily Guide, explaining that the victim, who was on her way to buy bread at a nearby shop, never returned.

According to him, the parents of the victim, upon waiting for her for a long time, became alarmed and started combing the area for her when an informant alerted them that Ruth was seen around the container.

He continued that residents of the area who were aggrieved about the incident arrested Agbadzi and sent him to the police head­quarters in Accra.

The Ashaiman divisional police were made to commence investigations into the matter, according to the crime officer.

Superintendent Daah further claimed that following preliminary investigations and interrogations, Agbadzi admitted murder­ing the girl by strangling her but refused to state why he committed such a crime.