Court was lenient with Issa Mobilla's 'killers' - Samia Nkrumah

Chairman of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP), Samia Nkrumah, believes the court was lenient when it sentenced two soldiers a total of 30 years for their roles in the murder of Issa Mobilla, former Northern Regional chairman of the party.

Alhaji Issa Mobilla was arrested and detained in respect of a gun-firing incident in the late hours of December 8th, 2004, at Werizehi, a suburb of Tamale in the Northern Region. He later died while in military detention.

On Monday, February 18, 2013 an Accra Fast Track High Court found two soldiers guilty of causing the death of Alhaji Issa Mobilla.

The two soldiers, Corporal Yaw Appiah and Private Seth Goka, were both found guilty of manslaughter by a seven-member jury. Private Goka, who is still on the run, was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Corporal Appiah received a jail term of 10 years.

Even though Ms Samia Nkrumah claimed justice has been delayed, she told Joy FM's Top Story that she was happy it finally came.

The soldiers were tried on the lesser charge of manslaughter because the jury believed they had simply acted on orders from above.

But Samia Nkrumah was convinced the soldiers had the intention to murder the CPP's former regional chairman by torturing him, arguing it is “not their (soldiers’) culture to torture people”.

She said: “Even though we are happy, we believe the sentence is low, because the men who committed the crime acted in a premeditated way, you don’t torture somebody to death by an accident.”

She described Alhaji Mobilla as a philanthropist, a man of substance, and a businessman who contributed immensely to the development of the north.

“We are going to put our heads together [with the family] to see how to immortalise his name,” she said.

The superior officer who ordered his torture should be brought to book, she said.

Meanwhile Thaddeus Sore, lawyer of Corporal Yaw Appiah, noted that evidence that the soldiers were ordered by their superior to torture Issa Mobilla was given by the prosecution itself in a report, “making it clear the convicts acted upon instruction”.

He said they were yet to reflect on the whole trial and the jurors' decision to advice themselves.

Though the conviction was yet to get to the family of Alhaji Mobilla back in the Northern Region, his first son who first heard the news from Multi TV’s Hashmin Mohammed said he knew “justice will surely prevail” and thanked the president and government for facilitating the trial.