A man who had been on remand for five months for possessing a roll of cannabis popularly called ‘weed’ has been discharged under the Justice For all Programme, Friday.
Kwame Esun, 28, was arrested in a town close to Sekondi on November 17, 2016 in possession of cannabis and has been on remand since then.
He was arrested in the company of six others all of whom have been freed.
Officials of the Justice For All Programme who are reviewing over 30 remand cases in the Sekondi prisons convicted Esun on his own plea but decided to discharge him having served five months already without trial.
Joy News’ Seth Kwame Boateng who is following the activities of the Justice For All programme reported that Esun was made to sign a bond of good behavior for a period of 12 months or will be jailed for two years.
According to Boateng, four other remand prisoners have also been discharged with one other case struck out.
Even though the Justice For All Programme began in September 2007, a Joy News documentary championed by Seth Kwame Boateng in 2015 brought into sharp focus the importance of the programme.
The documentary titled Locked and Forgotten, showed the crude, cruel, and inhumane conditions under which prisoners, particularly those on remand endure in prison.
The documentary captured how some innocent victims were left to rot in prison for as many years whilst others with misdemeanors were also left to spend many years than they would have spent if tried and convicted.
The Justice For All Programme was therefore reinvigorated to decongest the country’s prisons.
Two High Court judges have been shuffling through the country’s prisons to look into cases of remand prisoners and to bring finality on individual cases.
At the Sekondi prisons, the judges are looking into some 30 remand cases and are expected to make rulings on each one of them before proceeding to another prison.
Source: Myjoyonline.com