Police In A Fix Over Murder Case

The Police are faced with the difficult question of how to deal with an 11-year-old girl accused of killing a nine-month-old baby at Ahwiaa Zongo in Kumasi last Tuesday.

Even though the girl had admitted before the police at Mamponteng that a spirit drove her to kill the baby by hitting his head with a broken cement block, a police source told the Daily Graphic that they were in a tight corner as to how to deal with the case.

The Criminal Code stipulates that anybody below the age of 12 could not be faulted for any offence committed.
However, to make sure that the due process was followed, the police arraigned the girl (name withheld) at the Mamponteng District Court last Wednesday on a provisional charge of murder.

The court, which sat in chambers, granted her bail in the sum of GH¢2,000 (¢20 million) and adjourned the case to November 15.

The incident had thrown the predominantly Muslim community of Ahwiaa Zongo into a state of shock, considering the mysterious circumstance under which little Osman Jnr was picked up from the room where he was sleeping at the blind side of residents, and killed some 200 metres away.

The suspect was alleged to have stealthily entered the bedroom of the baby's parents, picked and sent him into an uncompleted building, where she hit the head with a cement block, killing him instantly.

To the superstitious, the whole act could be the work of witchcraft, especially as the suspect lived far away from the house, and was not known to the deceased's family.

She is alleged to have told the police that a spirit drove her into the act, but the police suspected there was more to it and were investigating the incident.

Briefing the Daily Graphic, the mother of the deceased, Fulera Adams, said at about 11 a.m on Tuesday, she left the baby in her bedroom to witness verbal exchanges over a stolen mobile phone between two people in a nearby house.

She returned to the house about 15 minutes later and the suspect entered the house to inform her that she had seen her baby killed in a house.

Fulera said she did not take the girl seriously because she knew her baby was asleep in the room. The girl therefore left the house.

Fulera said she did not immediately go into her room to find out whether the baby was there on not, and within minutes the girl returned to repeat what she told her early on.

She said the girl further told her that the baby who was dead resembled her (Fulera) and that she should go and see the body.

Once again Fulera did nothing about it until the girl left the house and returned the third time with the same message.

This time, some neighbours led the girl to the uncompleted building where Osman was found lying dead by a cement block, with blood oozing from the nostrils, mouth and ears.

Story by Kwame Asare Boadu