‘We Can’t Clean Our Anus’

Ebenezer Okorle Tetteh, one of the five arrested Sekondi Prisons jail-breakers standing trial at a Sekondi High Court on charges of escape from lawful custody and robbery, caused a stir yesterday when he blatantly told the court that the arrested jail-breakers could not clean their anus after attending to nature’s call at the prison.

He explained that the manner in which their hands had been handcuffed at their back and their legs chained at the prison made it difficult for them to clean their anus whenever they visited the lavatory.

He therefore appealed to the court presided over by Justice Robin Batu, a Supervising High Court judge, to plead with the prison officers to remove the handcuffs and unchain their legs whenever they were in the cell, to enable them move freely.

The presiding judge told the jail-breakers that the prison officers were adopting that strategy and other measures to ensure that they did not break jail again.

He however appealed to the officers to ensure that the arrested jail-breakers are able to clean their buttocks or anus after visiting the lavatory.

This was after the last prosecution witness and the investigator in the case, Detective Inspector Christian Akoensi of the Western Regional Criminal Investigations Department (CID), had testified before the court yesterday.

It will be recalled that two out of the seven prisoners who broke jail from the Sekondi Prisons on Sunday May 2, 2010, were each sentenced to 36 months’ imprisonment, in addition to their previous jail terms, by the court.

The two, Kwaku Abeiku and Ibrahim Jallo, who were serving 20 and 50-year jail terms respectively for stealing and robbery before the jail-break, were given 36-month sentences each to run concurrently, after they had pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to escape and escaping, when they appeared before the court last Monday.

The remaining five, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, were remanded in prison custody and were supposed to re-appear before the court yesterday.

They included Mohammed Issa, Raphael Lowoe, Mahamadu Gariba, Ebenezer Okorle Tetteh, and Gariba Amadu.

The CID officer noted that the jail break was reported to his outfit for investigations on May 2, 2010, the same day the incident happened.

He noted that when the case was reported, two of the jail-breakers had been re-arrested and the rest were arrested later.

The investigator added that he visited the scene on the Bakado road near Sekondi, where two vehicles which were hijacked by the jail-breakers had been abandoned.

He indicated that as at the time he got to the location of the abandoned vehicles, the ‘G3’ riffles, which were taken by the jail-breakers from the prison armory and left in the vehicles, had been picked up by the prison officers.

He told the court that he also visited those who were injured during the jail-break including the two prison officers who were guarding the main prison gate and the two drivers whose vehicles were hijacked by the jail-breakers.

He said after investigations, he went to the prison yard and charged the accused persons with escape from lawful custody and robbery, after which their caution statements were taken.

The court adjourned the case to June 15, 2010, when it will listen to the jail-breakers’ side of the story, after reading the caution statements of the accused persons.