THE AKYEM Swedru circuit court yesterday granted bail to four New Patriotic Party (NPP) members from Akyem Wenchi in the Eastern region in the sum of 500 Ghana cedis, with one surety for each of them, after being picked up for allegedly threatening to burn the house of an NDC chairman and kill his wife at Akyem Wenchi.
The ‘release’ of the four was greeted with wild jubilation by other party supporters, relatives and some officials of the party who had thronged the premises of the court to witness the verdict of the court presided over by Mr Kofi Akrowiah.
The four ‘detained’ NPP supporters were George Ntiamoah, 30; Elder Owusu Tabi, 45; Issa Ali, 29 and Ernest Nifa, 25.
The pleas of the suspects are yet to be taken by the court when they re-appear in court again on September 9.
Counsel for the four, Augustus Ennin Attafuah, told DAILY GUIDE that he was very pleased that his clients had eventually been given bail and that he was prepared to give a strong defence in court for their acquittal because the facts of the case, as presented in court, did not at all support the charges preferred against his clients.
“I believe the court will also give a fair and speedy trial of the caseâ€Â.
The facts of the case, as presented in court by DSP Arzar Mammalieh, the prosecutor, are that the four accused persons and 13 others, who are now at large, on Sunday August 16, went to Akwatia and caused disturbances in the town.
The prosecution said the NDC local chairman at Wenchi was at Akwatia and identified the youngmen who caused unrest in Akwatia on that fateful day.
According to the prosecutor, the police in their investigations found out that the four and 13 others who are on the run were part of the disturbances at Akwatia on August 16.
The four, according to the police, suspected that it was the NDC chairman, Kwadow Korankye, who gave them the information.
The prosecution said the four and the 13 others therefore took sticks and gallons of petrol to the house of the complainant to kill him, his wife and burn their house.
According to the prosecutor, one of the complainants, Abena Frempomaa, who is the wife of the NDC chairman, was then at home and on seeing the suspects, fled to an unknown destination.
According to the prosecution, the accused persons then vandalised the utensils at the complainants’ kitchen and also destroyed plantain trees around the house.
The prosecution continued that on Wednesday August 20, the police arrested George Ntiamoah, Owusu Tabi, Issa Ali and Ernest Nifa, but the remaining suspects had laid ambush to attack the police who carried the suspects away.
The wife of the complainants, Abena Frempomaa, had debunked her husband’s story and that of the police, saying that as the principal witness cum complainant, she was never attacked as being portrayed to the public.
She refuted her husband’s story last Monday at Akyem Wenchi, explaining at a press conference that she voluntarily left her husband’s home to avoid embarrassment because everybody was pointing accusing fingers at her husband as the one who betrayed the people of Wenchi.
From Thomas Fosu Jnr, Akyem Swedru