Ritual murder hits central region

Two weeks after a hunchback was killed at Twifo-Praso where his hunch was allegedly removed for rituals, a 28-year old scrap dealer, Abdul Aziz, at Elmina Zongo in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipality of the Central Region, has been found dead after being missing for four days.

Aziz had his penis, eyes and his tongue removed while he also had a broken jaw.

The body of Aziz has since been buried after the performance of the necessary Islamic rites.

Briefing Daily Guide on Monday, a concerned citizen who spoke on condition of anonymity said Aziz left the house around 4:30pm on February 21, 2012 and never returned home after he was alleged to have been called by some people at Abakam, a suburb of Cape Coast, to come and purchase some scraps.

The source said the situation compelled some people in the area to form a team to search for Aziz, adding that on February 25, 2012, somebody also going to purchase scraps found Aziz’s wheel parked at Abakam bearing the inscription, “For sale.”

The person who was aware that Aziz was missing then asked for the owner of the wheel and one Kweku Ahajalo said it belonged to him and two other people.

The person therefore told Ahajalo that he did not have enough money to purchase the wheel so he was going to collect money from his brother to enable him to purchase it.

After some hours, the person brought in the biological brother of Aziz who confronted them and later reported the matter to the KEEA District Police Command where Ahajalo was arrested.

The two other accomplices of Ahajalo took to their heels.

The source told Daily Guide that the case was then transferred to the University of Cape Coast (UCC) Police Station since the KEEA police command said the case did not fall under its jurisdiction.

Daily Guide gathered that the family of Aziz, anxious of finding him, had information that some unidentified bodies were packed at the Central Regional Hospital morgue where the family went and identified the body of Aziz.

Ahajalo has since been remanded by the Cape Coast Circuit Court and he is expected to reappear on April 26, 2012.