Nima police seek Attorney General’s advice to examine 11-year-old ‘killer’


The Nima Police are seeking advice from the Attorney General’s Department to have an 11-year-old boy who slit open, his father’s stomach examined for any mental disorder.

According to the Nima Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Nuhu Jango, who spoke to Joy News’ Beatrice Adu, the police could not rule out any possible psychiatric problem.

The 11-year-old boy was picked up by the Nima police last Wednesday for allegedly stabbing his father to death.

As a minor, he could not be detained and so was handed over to an uncle to take care of him while police investigated the incident.

Chief Superintendent Jango said investigation revealed that the lad dreamt having stabbed his dad and truly, when he woke up from his sleep, he had allegedly carried out the act.

In the dream, the police chief narrated that the boy had visited his grandmother and “somehow, he found himself taking a knife to slit open the dad’s stomach” after, which he (boy) became scared and run out to inform his uncle that same night he committed the crime.

Upon hearing the news, the uncle and some other relatives came in to carry the father, who was lying in a pool of blood to the hospital.

On reaching the 37 Military Hospital in Accra, the man was pronounced dead.

However, Chief Superintendent Jango claimed the boy was neither from a bad family nor heard of the family having any psychiatric history.

A lecturer at the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana, Kissi Adjabeng also explained to Joy News that considering the actual age of the boy, then he was incapable of committing a crime per section 26 of the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29).

He argued that “It is very simple; if you are below the age of 12 years, the law conclusively sees you as not capable of committing a crime so whatever you do before your 12th birthday is not criminal.”

“That is to say by the tenderness of your years; your immaturity – you do not have the capability to form the necessary intention in respect of the crime concerned,” he added.

Therefore, he noted that if the person could not make any moral judgment between wrong and right, then the person could not be held liable.

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