Court orders accused for psychiatric test

Kumasi, Dec 16, GNA- A Kumasi circuit court presided over by Mr Emmanuel Mensah on Tuesday ordered a woman standing trial for beheading her one-and-a-half-year-old boy and later buried him, to be sent to the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital to ascertain her mental condition.

The order followed a submission by the prosecution that the accused, Yaa Manu, 29, after her first birth about five years ago, developed mental illness that made her to behave abnormally.

The accused, whose plea was not taken, will re-appear on January 7, 2004.

Police Inspector Francis Kusi told the court that on December 5, this year, the accused who lives with her husband at Jachie in the Bosomtwe-Atwima-Kwanwoma District, quarrelled with him. The accused sent the boy to her parents at Huni-Valley in the Western Region.

Inspector Kusi said four days after the return of the accused to Jachie with the boy, she took him to the bush near their house, beheaded and buried him.

He said when Manu returned to the house late in the night without the child the husband and some neighbours became suspicious and quizzed her about the whereabouts of the child and she told them that she had beheaded and buried him.

Inspector Kusi said she took a search party to the bush and found where she buried the boy.