Father kills two and half months old baby

Agona Swedru, Nov 19, GNA - The Agona Swedru Magistrate Court presided over by Mr Charles Adjei Wilson has remanded into prison custody a 30 year- old father for killing his two and half months old baby.

The docket on Kofi Donkoh, alias Kofi Awuah, an Electronics mechanic on a provisional charge of murder would be sent to the Attorney Generals Department for advice.

The accused whose plea was not taken would reappear in court on December 1, 2004.

Prosecuting, ASP Christian Bortse, told the court that the accused was married to Adjoa Koraba and lived at Awutu Bawjiase in the Central Region with their two and half months old daughter, Erica Akua. He told the court that on the night of on November 2, 2004 at about 10 PM, there was power outage in the vicinity of the couple so and the wife decided to go and collect kerosene from the husband for her lantern.

According to the prosecution, this brought about a misunderstanding between them and the wife decided to leave the baby with the father. ASP Bortse told the court that after about an hour, the wife went to her husband's house to collect the baby, but to her surprise neither the accused nor the baby was in the room.

The prosecution stated that the following morning the husband "resurfaced" and when he was confronted told the wife that he had not seen the child and all efforts to trace the baby proved futile. ASP Bortse said the husband later told his friend that he had put the baby into a black polythene bag, tied both ends and deposited it at the refuse dump at Awutu Mankessim, near Bawjiase.

He said as soon as the friend heard the matter he informed Adjoa Koraba, who reported the case to the Bawjiase Police and the accused was arrested.

Upon interrogations, the accused confessed and a combined team of Police personnel and relatives of Koraba searched the refuse dump for the baby to no avail.

However, they later discovered that pigs had devoured the remains of the baby.