The Juvenile Court in Accra has sentenced a 15-year-old boy, found guilty of conspiring with a teenager to murder a 10-year-old boy in Kasoa for money rituals, to 12 months in prison.
He will serve his sentence at the Senior Correctional Centre.
Before receiving his sentence, the teary convict pleaded with the court for forgiveness, saying, “It was not my intention to kill my dear friend and to end his life this way. I pray the court will forgive all my sins and give me a second chance.”
He further pleaded for forgiveness from the deceased’s father, stating, “I have played with Ishmael (the deceased) for a very long time. I never planned to kill him. It was the devil.”
The presiding judge, Bernice Mensimah Ackon, explained that the juvenile convict was arrested in April 2021 and will be 19 this year. She added that the 15-year-old had been on remand for three years and two months.
According to the judge, under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2003 (ACT 653), the juvenile has already served a sentence of three years.
However, due to the gravity of the offence and the juvenile’s stated intention to pursue a technical vocation after dropping out of school at Basic 6, the court sentenced him to 12 months at a senior correctional centre to help him achieve his vocational goals.
Background
In October of the previous year, a seven-member jury found the two teenagers guilty on two counts of conspiracy to commit murder and the substantive charge of murder. The High Court, presided over by Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, sentenced the 18-year-old, Nicholas Kini, to life in prison.
The sentencing of the 15-year-old, however, was deferred to the Juvenile Court in line with Section 18(1) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2003 (ACT 653), which states that where a juvenile appears before a court of summary jurisdiction other than a juvenile court for a charge made jointly with a person over 18, the juvenile’s case must be remitted to a juvenile court for sentencing.
Since then, the 15-year-old has been kept in police custody awaiting sentencing.
Prosecution’s Facts
According to the prosecution, on March 29, 2021, the accused persons consulted a spiritualist for money rituals, locally known as “sakawa”. The spiritualist, who claimed to be from the Volta Region, allegedly requested GH¢5,000 and a human being for the ritual.
On April 3, 2021, the accused decided to use the deceased in furtherance of their “sakawa” mission. Around 9 a.m. on the same day, the juvenile accused lured the deceased into an uncompleted building where the second accused was waiting with a pickaxe club.
“As soon as the deceased arrived, they told him to remove a video game from a sack they had placed in a corner of the room. When the deceased bent down to remove the video game, the second accused struck him on the back of the neck with the club, causing him to fall,” said Nana Osei, the prosecutor.
The deceased, now unconscious but still breathing, turned to the juvenile accused and pleaded for his life, asking for forgiveness if he had offended him. The plea was ignored as the juvenile accused struck the deceased’s head with a cement block.
The accused persons then used a spade and shovel to dig a shallow grave and buried the deceased, intending to transport him to the spiritualist.
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