Ex-convict jailed for smuggling phone to prisoner

A 32-year-old ex-convict of the Sunyani Prison, Yaw Adjei, has been re-imprisoned by a Sunyani circuit court for concealing a mobile phone in a loaf of bread meant for a prisoner.

He was also fined GH¢300 in addition to his incarceration.

He is to serve two weeks for going contrary to Section 26 ‘A’ of Prison’s Service Decree of 1972 (NRCD 46), which prohibits certain items from entering prisons in Ghana.

Speaking to DAILY GUIDE after the sentence, the Deputy Public Relations Officer of the Sunyani Prisons, ASP Austin Jonas Ziem, said Adjei, who was released after serving two weeks’ jail term previously for assault under the name Prince Boaten, came back on October 30, 2015 as a visitor to another prisoner, Ebenezar Odum, to present him with butter bread.

But upon a thorough scrutiny on the bread by prison officers, it was realized that there was a Nokia 11,100 mobile phone hidden in the bread with a Tigo number, 027******, written at the back of the phone and a chip in it.

Prison authorities say upon careful examination of the bread, it was realized that Adjei had scooped the inner part of the GH¢5 butter bread and placed the phone inside it and later sealed it with glue. When it was discovered, he first denied knowledge of it but later said it was given to him by a bread seller around the prison; but this was later found to be untrue.

According to the Deputy PRO, though he came with the name Yaw Adjei, the prisons officers, through facial recognition, were able to determine that he had been in the prison before with a different name – Prince Boaten – to which he agreed and was handed over to the police for prosecution.

ASP Ziem said upon interrogation, Adjei told the police that before he was freed, Ebenezer, who is on remand and yet to be sentenced for murder, planned with him to send him the mobile phone in the prison to help him communicate with some friends outside so that when he (Odum) was brought to court for sentence, he could assist him to escape through friends.