American paedophile gets 25 years

Tema, Oct. 16, GNA - Tema Circuit Court A, on Thursday sentenced a US citizen to 25 years imprisonment, in hard labour for defilement.

Patrick Kent Labash, a 65-year-old retired teacher, was convicted on his own plea for having unnatural canal knowledge of seven minors, at Adjomankope near Sege in the Dangme East District.

The Court ordered that the convict should be repatriated after serving his sentence.

Labash was sentenced to a 25-year jail term each for one count of having unnatural canal knowledge and seven counts of defilement. The sentences are to run concurrently.

He was convicted on his own plea of guilty on the first charge, while he was pronounced guilty by the trial judge, Mrs Lorinda Owusu, on the other seven counts.

The paedophile, who was dressed in a white T-shirt and green trousers, had to be helped to the dock by two police officials as he was limping on both legs.

Giving the ruling, the presiding judge said all the eight victims comprising minors between three and 12 years, corroborated the facts given by the prosecution.

Mrs Owusu said in her evidence, one of the victims, a three-year-old girl, said "the convict asked me to suck his manhood, which I did after which he gave me GHp20.00, and toffee, and watched movies. I have done th= at on four occasions".

Mrs Owusu added that the convict, who did not call any witness, claimed the pornographic pictures of his activities, which were retrieved from his computer laptop, were not real, because he created them out of his imagination.

The judge noted that a court photographic expert, however, confirmed that the pictures were genuine, adding that the tattoo she saw on the hand of the faceless whiteman in the pornographic recordings, was the same one on Labash's left hand.

She expressed disgust at the offence committed by the paedophile, saying, "The victims are young to be your grandchildren and you defiled them in a disgusting manner."

"The offence is against public morality and society frowns on it, our courts will descend greatly on perpetrators of such acts," she added. Mrs Owusu said the sentence "should serve as a deterrent to foreigners who think they can hide in third world countries and exploit innocent childre= n through such acts". The case for the prosecution was that Labash has been luring children to=

his residence with money, toffee, food and movies, where he asked them to=

suck his erected manhood, discharged semen into their mouths and instruct= ed them to swallow it. Water Resources Minister inspect projects in Kumasi

Kumasi, Oct.15, GNA- Mr. Albert Abongo, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, has inspected on-going water rehabilitation and expansion works designed to increase daily water supply to the Kumasi Metropolis from 21 to 27 million gallons.

The Barekese and Owabi head-works together has a production capacit= y of 21 million gallons of water to serve the population of Kumasi and its environs. The construction of a 123,000 cubic metre reservoir at Suame, a 5,200 cubic metre booster station at Achiase, laying of 84 kilometres of pipelines, replacement of pumps and other equipment to raise the capacity= of treatment plants at the Barekese head-works are among the main activities= been undertaken.

The Government of Netherlands under its ORET funds is providing support for the works being done by Dutch contractors, Ballast Nedam Company. Mr Ebenezer Garbrah, Regional Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited, told the Minister that the target production of 27 million gallons was not enough to meet the demands of the metropolis. Kumasi and its environs present water supply demand is at 34 million gallons a day, he said.

The Resident Engineer of the construction company, Mr John Goli informed the Minister that the works are about 96 per cent complete. The Minister expressed his satisfaction with the job done so far an= d repeated the Government's commitment towards ensuring that all Ghanaians have access to good drinking water. Mr. Abongo earlier visited a waste dumping site at Amanfrom, which falls within the Owabi dam's catchment area and urged the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, the Ashanti Regional Co-ordinating Council and oth= er stakeholders to ensure it re-location. He also inspected Nwabi farming community that is located at the downstream of the Owabi dam, where houses have been destroyed by spillage=

from the dam. The Member of Parliament for Atwima-Nwabiagya, Mr Benito Owusu-Bio appealed to the Government to help resettle the people to safer grounds.