Romeo Pastor Freed

THE ‘ROMEO’ pastor who allegedly attempted to rape the wife of a policeman at a hotel at Aboabo, a suburb of Koforidua in the Eastern region, has been granted bail in the sum of GH¢5,000 with two sureties to be justified, when he appeared before court yesterday.

Of the two sureties, one must be resident at Koforidua; while the pastor is to appear in court on June 22. When the accused, Evangelist Akwasi Oppong of Power of Jesus Church, was brought to court, he took out his frustrations on journalists who were at the court to observe proceedings, asking them what they wanted from him after all that they had said about him in the media.

At the district magistrate court “B” yesterday where he was first taken a day after his arrest, the magistrate, Priscilla Yeboah, asked about the whereabouts of the ‘pastor’. “Where is the pastor?” was the question she asked when she started the day’s work.

The suspect was however brought to court later. The first time he appeared before the court on May 27, his plea was not taken and he was remanded in prison custody to allow the police to conduct further investigations into the matter.

There were not so many people at the court. However, the mother of the accused and some close relations were at the court premises when he was brought there.

He looked relaxed in a handcuff but the escort policeman resisted journalists’ attempt to take photographs of him. The police said Evangelist Akwasi Oppong invited the wife of the policeman to the Amsterdam Hotel at Aboabo where he was lodging, for counseling, and attempted to rape her.

According to the police, the wife of the policeman, Joyce Odame, 30, who had been married to her husband for just two weeks before the incident, excused the pastor to visit the washroom and decided to call another policeman who was a friend to the husband, since her husband was on duty.

The police officer rushed to the hotel in no time and forcibly opened the door to the hotel room. According to the police, the policeman found the pastor naked, attempting to rape his colleague’s wife.
He attempted to arrest the pastor but the latter resisted and used a bottle to hit the forehead of the policeman.

The police explained that the pastor managed to escape from the room but the policeman raised an alarm and the pastor was arrested in a nearby bush.

The evangelist however told the police that Joyce Odame had insisted on coming to the hotel even though he wanted to pray for her over the phone. He explained that the wife of the policeman was rather trying to seduce him when she asked him to unzip her blouse and open her brassiere for her.