Guesthouse operator jailed five years for attempted murder

Cape Coast, Aug 4, GNA - A high court in Cape Coast, on Monday sentenced a guesthouse operator, Gabriel Kwamena Ababio 21, to five years imprisonment in hard labour for mutilating the hand of a student of Twifo-Praso Senior High School, over a puppy, resulting in its amputation.

Ababio, who was found guilty of conspiracy to commit crime and attempted murder, was in addition ordered by the court presided over by Mr Justice Ahmed Mohammed Mustapha, to compensate the victim, Master Kwabena Dickson with GH¢ 1,000.00.

In the dock with him on the same charges, was his mother, Esi Kessewa, 56 and owner of a guest house who was also found guilty and sentenced to a fine of GH¢2,000.00 on both counts, or in default, five years imprisonment in hard labour.

The Principal State Attorney, Mrs Hannah Taylor, had earlier told the court that on January 31 last year, Dickson, also aged 21, met Ababio and expressed interest in his (Ababio's) puppy and told him that he would later go for it.

She said Dickson stayed with his grandmother at Twifo-Praso but went to his mother's house at Twifo-Mampong every evening to eat and that on the evening of February 2 last year, after he had gone there to eat, he decided to pass by the guesthouse to check on the puppy, and began to play with it when he saw it. Mrs Taylor said Dickson later picked up the puppy and it started barking and this attracted Kessewa, who on seeing Dickson, called Ababio and asked him to fetch a machete.

She said Kessewa then held Dickson tightly, while her son, slashed him on the left wrist, almost severing it, and as he struggled to free himself, slashed him on the head, legs and back and again on the left hand, after which two other men came out of the guesthouse to chase him away. Mrs Taylor said while he was running away, Dickson fell into a deep ditch but Kesewa, Ababio and the two other men, dragged him out into an uncompleted building and left him there but he managed to shout for help, and was found unconscious by the time some people came to his rescue. She said Dickson's left arm which was in a very bad state was amputated later at the hospital.