Entrepreneur granted GHC300,000 bail for stealing, trafficking two children from Nigeria

An Accra Circuit Court has granted a GHC300,000.00 bail with two sureties to an entrepreneur who allegedly stole and trafficked two children from Nigeria to Ghana.

The Court, presided over by Mrs Kizita Naa Koowa Quarshie, ruled that Blessing Astrim’s sureties reside within the Court’s jurisdiction.

It stated that one of the sureties must be justified with movable or immovable property equivalent to the bail sum.

Astrim, 47, is required to deposit her valid identification (ID), such as a passport, Ghana card, or voter’s ID, and to report to the police once a week, on Wednesday.

The accused has denied stealing and trafficking two children, a boy, and a girl.

She is expected to go back to the Court on May 25, 2024.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Isaac Babayi informed the Court that the complainant, Mr George Hood, is a pharmacist and the husband of the accused, Astrim, a Nigerian.

He said on September 4, 2023, the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit/Criminal Investigative Department (CID) Headquarters of the Ghana Police Service, received a petition for assistance from the complainant.

The petition stated that in 2022, Mr Hood’s wife, Astrim, who was allegedly pregnant, travelled to Nigeria in the seventh month to deliver.

ASP Babayi said that in December 2022, the accused returned to Ghana with two children, a boy, and a girl, claiming to have given birth to twins.

The complainant reported to police that a thorough examination of the children revealed differences that raised suspicion, prompting a DNA test.

The prosecution said the DNA test result indicated that both the accused person and the complainant are not biologically related to the children, and neither were the twins genetically related.

Several attempts to get Atrim to reveal where she got the children failed, so the complainant told police that during the period she told him she was pregnant, he made several attempts to get the accused to go to the hospital for antenatal care, but she refused, the court heard.

He said investigations showed that the accused did not visit any medical facilities in Ghana, but she claimed that her pregnancy was enigmatic and could not be detected by any medical equipment.

According to ASP Babayi, during the investigation, police conducted a DNA test on the accused person, complainant, and alleged twins at a medical facility in Accra called Blueprint DNA Organization, and the DNA results revealed that both the accused and the complainant are not biologically related to the children, and the children are not biologically related either.

The prosecution stated that letters had been sent to INTERPOL Nigeria and the Nigerian National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) to investigate whether the accused delivered the twins during the period in question at the Fatan Divine Clinic and Laboratory in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.

Meanwhile, no response has been received. But the accused was charged with the offence following investigations.

Mr Ameyaw Nyamekye, the accused’s lawyer, stated in his bail application that his client is a Ghanaian born in the Volta Region and not a Nigerian.

He said that although the police had written to INTERPOL Nigeria and NAPTIP, it had yet to be established whose children had been stolen.

The defence counsel argued that the children were still in the accused’s possession and were being well cared for, therefore police did not see the need to remove them from her.

Mr Nyamekye said that his client was not a flight risk if granted bail because she owned the Lake Road Estate and operates a pharmaceutical shop and that she should be granted a favourable bond for the sake of the children.

In opposing the bail, ASP Babayi refuted the claim that police failed to remove the children from the accused because they were well-cared for, stating that it was the Court’s responsibility, not the police, to exercise that power.

He indicated that arrangements had been made with “Power of Love,” a Non-Governmental Organization working with Social Welfare to take custody of the children, which would be in the best interests of the children, and that police would speed up the trial.

ASP Babayi urged the court to evaluate the nature of the crime, the evidence presented, and the fact that if the accused person is given bail, she may not return to court to face justice because she could leave with the children, effectively ending the prosecution.

GNA