Man remanded for allegedly killing taxi driver

The Mamponteng District Court has, for the second time, remanded into prison custody the 23-year-old man, accused of killing a taxi driver over a GH¢1,200, which the deceased owned him.

The suspect, Emmanuel Awuah, has been preliminary charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit murder and murder, but, his plea is yet to be taken.

On his first appearance, the court, presided by Mr Thomas Boadi Soyori, remanded him for three weeks, and, when he appeared on August 3, the court sent him back to remand until August 31, 2020.

Detective Sergeant (Sgt) Steven Oppong told the court that his outfit was yet to receive an autopsy report on the deceased from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, and was also yet to send the docket on the case to the Attorney General for advice on the case.

The court heard that Awuah was a friend of the deceased, Thomas Kwame Danso, 24.

Awuah together with an accomplice, who is at large, lured him (the deceased) to a teak plantation between Atwima Gyankobaa and Hwediem near Nyinahini in the Atwima Mponua District of Ashanti Region.

The prosecution said the owner of the taxi, Daniel Owusu, reported to the police station of the missing driver on July 12, 2020.

Upon investigation, the police apprehended Awuah, who was in the possession of the taxi with registration number GE 1436-17 at Nyinahini.

According to prosecution, Awuah told the accomplice to help him retrieve his money and they succeeded in luring the driver to the scene of the crime where they strangled him to death.

When the police got to the scene, the head of the deceased was almost decomposed and the body had been conveyed to the mortuary of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

Awuah was initially referred to as a final year Geological Engineering student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

But the university disassociated itself from him, saying the suspect abandoned his course for two academic years and could, therefore, not be referred to as a KNUST final year student.

A statement signed by the university’s Relations Officer, Dr Daniel Norris Bekoe, and copied to Ghanaian Times, indicated Awuah did not register for the first and second semesters of the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 academic years.