Funeral Turns Sour

A man who painfully decided to mourn the death of his bosom friend, has ended up killing a bystander. The incident occurred at Big Ada. It all happened when a 74-year-old retired police officer, Robert Ametepe, went to the funeral grounds of his intimate friend, the late Major (rtd) Osabutey, and fired three shots into the air, as a mark of solidarity and final respects to the late solder.

He was returning home at about 9:30pm, when he decided to remove the empty shells from the pump action gun that he had used, at the roadside. Unfortunately for him, one live ammunition was left in the magazine and in the process of tampering with the gun, it went off, and struck a young man, Adikour Okutu, 30, who was coming from the opposite direction.

The bullet struck her in the groin, rupturing the nerve fibre in the process, and she fell to the ground, with blood gushing out of the severed nerve. There was a stampede at the scene, with most of the sellers around the place running for cover. But the retired police officer, who was unaware that his bullet had caused any havoc, started walking away before he was beckoned by a man who was standing near-by, who informed him of the tragedy.

The perplexed old man ran to the scene, and with the help of others, rushed the victim to the Ada District hospital, but she passed away before reaching hospital. The assembly member of the area, Hon. Samuel Kportufe then reported the incident to the police who quickly effected the arrest of the suspect, and placed him in the custody, pending further investigation. The body of the deceased was immediately deposited at the district hospital morgue, awaiting autopsy.