Man spends months at Ankaful Prison instead of Ankaful Hospital

A 61-Year-Old farmer, Kwesi Ofori, who has been in prison custody for six years and four months for murder has been discharged under the Justice For All Programme.

The farmer was the only remand prisoner out of 26 inmates at the Winneba Prisons who was released under the Justice For All Programme.

Out of the 26, 18 inmates had their case struck out; four others were refused bail while two other inmates on the list were already convicted.

Justice C. J. Honyenugah, who was the chairman of the Remand Review Taskforce and a Justice of the Court of Appeal, described the programme as successful.

The farmer in an interview said he was happy to have been discharged and that he had learnt his lessons.

According to him, the alleged murder happened the same period when there was a misunderstanding between him and his wife. He said he had been in prison without trial for six years and four months.

Full investigations at Ankaful

In another development, Justice Honyenugah called for full scale investigations into the circumstances which led to police investigators whisking away a remand inmate who was due to benefit from the Justice For All Programme at the Ankaful Prison.

At the Ankaful Prison when 19 inmates were presented to benefit from the programme, one Abeiku More an applicant for the programme was nowhere to be found.

Justice Honyenugah after realising that both counsel and State Attorneys in the case had no knowledge of the move called for investigations into the matter.

He struck out the case which he described as “strange” especially when the police knew the inmate had applied for the Justice For All Programme.

It also emerged that, one inmate Mohammed Awal was wrongfully remanded after the court in Accra had ordered that he should be sent to the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital for mental test. He was rather sent to the Ankaful Prison in November 2016.

In all, 13 inmates were granted bail, two cases were struck out, two applications were refused and two inmates were discharged unconditionally.