Wednesday, May 19, 2010
By Stephen Kwabena Effah
Four of the 10 persons put before court for the alleged murder of the overlord of Dagbon, Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, will this morning be freed when they make their third appearance at an Accra District Magistrate’s court.
The six others who have been indicted by the Attorney-General’s Department, are also expected to be committed for trial this morning Chief State Attorney, Anthony Rexford Owiredu, disclosed this yesterday, after the Accra Human Rights High Court refused bail for eight of them.
Mr. Owiredu declined to give the names of the four accused persons and the reasons for their expected discharge, saying that information would be given in court today.
The 10 accused persons are Iddrisu Iddi, 76; Alhaji Baba Abdula, 56; Kwame Alhassan, 53; Yidana Sugri, 42; Mohammed Kojo, 45; Mahamadu Abdulai, 57; Sayibu Mohammed, 34; Yakubu Mahamadu, 42; Alhassan Braima and Abubakar Mahama.
Yidani Sugri is facing one count of unlawful military training, while the others face two counts of conspiracy to murder and murder.
Nine of the accused had applied for bail on April 16, but the Accra Human Rights Court which heard the application, yesterday granted Yidana Sugri a GH¢10,000 bail with one surety but refused bail to eight others.
In granting Sugri bail, the court presided over by Justice U.P. Dery, pointed out that it did not understand why Sugri was charged together with the other accused persons since the prosecution failed to establish his connection to the Ya Na’s murder.
However, the court disagreed with the argument by Atta Akyea, defence counsel, that it was wrong for Sugri, who was once arrested, tried, acquitted and discharged, to be re-arrested and put before court again.
The court explained that the charge on which Sugri had been arraigned before the court had no bearing on the charge based on which he was acquitted and discharged, adding that it did not see any connection between the previous case and the present one.
According to the court, the eight others who were refused bail were not able to put up a reasonable case to warrant bail.
The court held that it was only when there was unreasonable delay that it could grant the accused persons bail, in view of the Act under which they had been charged, but “in the present case, there has not been any unreasonable delay because it is just a little over a month since the accused persons were arrested.”
Ya-Na and about 22 of his elders were murdered in 2002 during a three-day siege on the Gbewaa Palace in an intractable chieftaincy dispute between the two royal gates - Andani and Abudu of Yendi
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