Major Mahama murder trial: Prosecution invites 10th witness

Chief Inspector Daniel Yeboah, the 10th prosecution witness in the trial involving the alleged murder of Major Maxwell Mahama, last Monday told the court hearing the case that when the police got to the scene of the alleged murder, “we saw him naked with the head damaged and the body partly burnt”.

Mr Yeboah, who was describing the corpse of the late Major Mahama, said from there, he asked his men to photograph the body before it was sent to the mortuary at Dunkwa-on-Offin.

Mr Yeboah, a serving police officer for the past 34 years, was being led by Chief State Attorney, Mr Joshua Sackey, to give his evidence in chief during the trial at the court presided over by Justice Mariama Owusu.

Narration

Narrating what happened on May 29, 2017, the witness said at around 10:10 a.m., he was in his office at Deiso Police Station when William Baah, the Assembly Member of Denkyira Obuasi — now an accused person on trial — came to lodge a complaint.

The witness said the Assembly Member said at around 9 a.m., he received a call from food sellers that they had seen a man (late Major Mahama) with a gun jogging on the Denkyira Obuasi highway, and that they suspected him to be an armed robber.

He said the Assembly Member said he mobilised two men armed with guns and followed the man, and on reaching the cemetery junction, they saw him and attempted to approach him but the man pulled a gun at him and managed to escape so he decided to report to the police.

“I directed him to the Charge Office to make a formal complaint,” he said.

Mr Yeboah, who is also the Station Officer, said his District Commander, one Adu Agyeman, later called him from Dunkwa-on-Offin and informed him that he had received a report of an armed robber’s presence at Denkyira-Obuasi, and so he quickly mobilised his men armed with three AK 47 riffles and headed to the scene on board a private car.

He said when they arrived at the scene at about 10:25 a.m., they saw more than 100 people standing at the scene, where they sighted the alleged robber lying naked with bruises all over his body with his head damaged, with pieces of cement blocks beside him.

“I asked my men to photograph the body before transporting it to Dunkwa-On-Offin mortuary for preservation,” he said.

Military enquiry

He said around the area, the team found one empty 9MM CBC local cartridge and on the same day at around 7 p.m., a three-man military team led by one W.O. II Lawrence Akyea Yaw came to the station and reported that their detachment commander went for jogging around 7:30 a.m. that morning and had since not returned.

He said the leader said they had also heard that an armed robber had been lynched in the area, and they had followed up to the mortuary and identified the deceased to be their commander, hence their move to lodge a formal complaint.

The witness then identified a photograph of the deceased in open court taken by his men at the scene.

Fourteen persons, including the Assembly Member of Denkyira Obuasi, William Baah, are standing trial at an Accra High Court over the killing of Major Mahama, who was an officer of the Fifth Infantry Battalion at Burma Camp.

The late Major was on duty at Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central Region when on May 29, 2017 some residents allegedly mistook him for an armed robber and lynched him.

The mob had apparently ignored his persistent plea that he was an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces.

The court adjourned the case to Tuesday, May 21.