The late Maj. Mahama
A pathologist who examined the remains of Major
Maxwell Mahama yesterday gave a harrowing account of how the soldier died as he
presented an autopsy report to an Accra High Court.
Dr. Lawrence Edusei of the Korle Bu Teaching
Hospital told the court how pellets were found in some parts of the body of the
fallen soldier, who was lynched by an angry mob at Denkyira Obuasi (now New
Obuasi) in the Central Region.
Besides, the doctor told the court how the
deceased had multiple burns on parts of the body, covering about 54 per cent of
the total body surface.
Apart from the pellets and burns, the court
also heard that the body was inflicted with multiple cuts, including fractured
chest bones.
The doctor told the court that the cause of
death was as a result of multiple head injuries due to blunt object and
shotguns which he said were ‘unnatural cause of death.’
Death
Major Maxwell Mahama was on a 20-kilometre walk
when he was reportedly mistaken for an armed robber by some women from whom he
had stopped to buy some snails.
The women, who thought he was an armed robber
after spotting his official pistol, reportedly called the assemblyman for the
area to raise the alarm.
The assemblyman allegedly organised people in
the town to lynch the soldier and later burnt parts of his body.
A total of 14 persons are currently before an
Accra High Court charged with abetment and murder of the young soldier.
They have pleaded not guilty to the charges and
the pathologist is the 13th prosecution witness in the case.
Autopsy
Report
Yesterday, led in his evidence by Chief State
Attorney Evelyn Keelson, the pathologist told the court that he had performed both
external and internal examinations on the body.
According to him, the external examinations
revealed marks of violence which included burns involving the head, both upper
limbs, both lower limbs, and the abdomen.
The internal examinations, he said, revealed bleedings
in the brain, while there were also “extensive bleedings on the surface of the
lungs and a penetrating injury of the left lung.”
“There was extensive bleeding in the left upper
half of the abdomen. The rest of the systems were essentially normal,” Dr. Edusei
told the court further.
X-ray
The doctor also stated that he conducted an
X-ray on the body prior to the autopsy to help identify where the bullets
entered the body.
He said the X-ray “revealed pellets lodged on
the left side of the jaw, the lower end of the right thigh bone and the lower
part of the left leg. There was an object lodged at the right side of the
pelvic bone that had caused a fracture. I did mention that it was difficult to
determine what this object was but it is mostly likely to be from a shotgun.”
Cross
Examination
George Bernard Shaw, who is representing five
of the accused persons during cross-examination, asked him whether it was best
practice to conduct the autopsy without the proper contribution of the crime
scene experts and ballistic experts.
Dr. Edusei responded that he got adequate information from the police but for the ballistic expert “his work is totally different from mine and I don’t need his contribution to arrive at my conclusion.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak
