45 year old woman remanded for possession Indian hemp

Fiapre, April 29, GNA - A circuit court at Fiapre near Sunyani, on Tuesday remanded a 45 year-old trader, Elizabeth Babio, into prison custody for allegedly possessing 25 bags of dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp.

Her plea to the charge of possessing narcotic drug was not taken and would reappear before the court on May 6, 2009.

Prosecuting, Chief Inspector Kingsley Baafi said on April 23, this year at about 2200 hours officials of Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) on the Techiman-Kumasi road ordered a KIA truck with registration number GR 5542 Z loaded with bags of charcoal to stop.

He said when the officials drew near to the vehicle they suspected that it could contain some other substances and therefore ordered the driver to off-load the charcoal.

Chief Inspector Baafi said the off-loading of the goods revealed that the sacks on top contained charcoal whilst 25 sacks under were full of dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp.

He said when confronted, the driver pointed at Babio, who was at the time seating at the front of the vehicle as the owner of the items. Babio was therefore arrested and handed over to the police. The prosecutor said Babio told the police during interrogation that the sacks containing the charcoal belonged to her and was sending them to Kumasi for sale but denied knowledge of the dried leaves.

He said investigations were still going on while further test on the dried leaves were being carried out.