Two men have been on remand at the Wa Central Prison in the Upper West Region for the past 10 years without trial, writes The Ghanaian Times.
Iddrisu Abudrahaman, 49, and Iddrisu Yussif, 41, have been held since 1991 for suspected murder. The Assistant Director of Prisons, Mr Garvase Kuupiel, disclosed this to the Regional Minister, Mr Mogtari Sahanun, when he paid a working visit to the prison.
It formed part of the Minister's tour of key institutions in the region to acquaint himself with problems militating against their progress and to seek solutions to them.
The suspects told the Regional Minister that they appeared before the Upper West Regional Tribunal in 1992 and later the National Tribunal in 1993. They were remanded at the James Fort Prison in Accra and later brought back to Wa Central Prisons without any progress being made in their trial.
They said that in September 1997, they appeared before the Wa High Court and had since been abandoned in the prison.
The suspects said they had petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Inspector-General of Police but no positive decision had been taken on their case. They appealed to the Minister to intervene on their behalf so that a decisive decision could be taken on them.
Briefing the Minister, Mr Kuupiel said that there were 100 people at the prisons, comprising 65 convicts, 37 first offenders, 19 second offenders and nine recidivists.
