Lawyer calls on Social Welfare…to provide accommodation for juvenile
The fate of a-16-year- old is lurking, as he is currently wallowing in police cells, even though a Tema Circuit Court has granted him bail on alleged charge of drug peddling.
The juvenile, who hails from Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region, is still with the Tema Railway Police station awaiting the fulfillment of a surety, which he could not get since he had nobody to offer him help.
Mr. Prosper Max Lotsu, from Lotsu and Associates, who voluntarily offered free legal service to the juvenile and acquired bail for him, is therefore calling on the Department of Social Welfare to come to the aid of the accused and to grant him safe accommodation as the trial continues.
According to counsel, the juvenile was arrested and remanded in the early part of 2007, when he was 14 years, soon after arriving from Bolgatanga to look for a job as a result of poor parentage.
Mr. Lotsu noted that he had learnt that the juvenile had lost his mother at a tender age and also has a father, who is currently ill at Bolgatanga. Information gathered indicated that the juvenile was arrested on suspicion of dealing in Indian hemp (marijuana) at the time he was sleeping in a kiosk located in one of the slums in Ashiaman, a suburb of Accra.
The arrest of the juvenile followed a police swoop for drug peddlers conducted around the area, which resulted in the escape of all the people at the place, leaving the poor boy, who was sleeping in the kiosk, and subsequently arrested.
According to Lotsu, he chanced upon the juvenile, who was in handcuffs and escorted by a policeman, when he was on his errands at the Tema Railway Police station.
Counsel noted that he followed up on the juvenile and the policeman after knowing that the accused person was being sent to the Tema Circuit court, where he successfully got bail for the juvenile.