Alleged murderer of toddler appears in court

Accra, April 11, GNA - A taxi driver, who is accused of murdering a two-and-a-half-year-old school boy, Kwabena Agyei Henaku, at Madina appeared before a District Magistrate's Court in Accra on Monday. Emmanuel Amanor, 32, whose plea was not taken, is facing a provisional charge of murder.

The Court remanded him in Police custody pending further investigations into the matter. The case of the prosecution is that Henaku attended Ecole Fran=E7ais Adekel, near the Kotoka International Airport and Amanor, who had been working for eight months with the parents of the deceased, picked him to and from school daily. The prosecution said on Friday, March 4, 2011, the Police at Adenta received information from the grandmother of the boy that he had gone missing.

When Amanor was picked up by the police, he claimed that the boy had died in an accident but he could not tell where the body was. Amanor claimed that the boy's head hit the dashboard of the car with registration number GR 2273-10 when he applied the brakes of the car and he died, but the body has since not been retrieved. He said he deposited the body in a valley, near the Akuapim mountain range. He later lodged a complaint at the Airport Police Station that he had been involved in an accident. Amanor upon further interrogation claimed that after the accident, he dumped the body in a valley near Larteh, since he was afraid to report the matter to his parents. When Amanor was taken to the site where he claimed they could find the body of the boy, the police found only his school bag soaked in blood.

Amanor has been handed over to the Homicide Unit at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters for further investigations. 11 April 11