Two friends jailed a total of 30 years

Aflao, (V/R) Dec, 15, GNA - Two friends who took advantage of jubilations over the Polling Centre results won by the NDC at Xife in the Ketu District of the Volta Region during the night of the December 7 Elections, and defiled a 14-year-old girl in turns overnight, have been sentenced to a total of 30 years in prison on Friday by the Aflao circuit court.

Dzifa Anyikah, 30, and Doe Lumor, 19, both farmers at Xife have pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit crime and defilement. Each of them is to serve 15 years each on each of the two counts, which are to run concurrently.

Prosecuting, Police Inspector Michael Torgbenu, in-charge of Tadzewu, told the court that the accused persons lived at Xife, which was a polling centre during this year's elections, while the victim lives with her parents at nearby Devego, also in the Ketu District.

He said following the declaration of the Xife polling centre Presidential and Parliamentary results after the end of voting, both having been won massively by their favoured candidates, the people of Xife and other visiting-voters went into wild jubilations running deep into the night in the village.

Inspector Togbenu told the court that in the course of the procession marking the local victory celebrations, Anyikah and Lumor lured the victim to Lumor's room where they detained and forcibly had sex with her in turns, until the following morning, when the victim, whose distress call could not be heard because of the noisy atmosphere then in the night, reported the incidence, while crying, to her parents on her release.

Mr. Godwin Kwasi-Kumah, the presiding judge, passing sentence, noted that the practice of people taking undue advantage of young girls and sexually harm them, is becoming a major headache that needs to stopped. "What you did is bad. You deserve the severest punishment to deter others who think they can misbehave in such a way and escape the law", he concluded.