Asamankese (Eastern Region) 15 April ?99
A robust-looking young man who appeared before the Asamankese circuit court for stealing a sheep pleaded with the judge not to send him to prison.
"I will die there if I am sent to jail," he pleaded. But Mr S.S. Appiah, the judge, sentenced Adarkwa Yiadom, a farmer, to l18 months in jail in hard labour, assuring him that if he died there, there would be people to bury him.
Yiadom was said to have stolen the sheep, valued at 25,000 cedis, which he killed and smoked. Detective Inspector S.L. Ayeh, prosecuting, told the court that both Yiadom and Kojo Mawuli, the complainant, are farmers and close neighbours at Asikasu.
On April six, a witness, whose name was not given, spotted the accused carrying something in a fertiliser sack. This aroused his suspicion and, therefore, questioned Yiadom who said it contained smoked mutton. The witness then arrested the accused and took him to the police station where he confessed to stealing and killing the sheep which Mawuli had earlier complained was missing. Asked by the judge why he killed the animal, the accused replied that it was sick, so he killed it upon the advice of someone he did not name. Mr Ayeh asked the court to punish Yiadom to serve as a deterrent to others. Mr Appiah, in sentencing the accused, noted that the likes of him posed danger to society.
