Three persons arrested in connection with the murder of a fisherman following a disagreement over a fishing net, were last Tuesday put before a District Magistrate’s Court in Accra.
The accused persons — Daniel Sekafa, alias Della, 23, a fisherman, and his brother, Eric Sekafa, 26, also a fisherman — are standing trial together with Stephen Ahiakpor, 26, a mason.
They are facing two counts of murder and conspiracy to commit crime for the death of Lumor Abateye, a 34-year-old fisherman whose body was retrieved from the Densu River where he had gone fishing.
Fact of the case
The courtroom was packed with family members of the deceased and the three accused persons.
Presenting the facts of the case, Sergeant Maxwell Ayim said a 13-year-old boy, in the company of one Joyce Akplah, an aunt of the deceased, reported to the Anyah Police that some people had attacked Abateye on the Densu River at Agape Down on May 5, 2014.
He told the court, presided over by Mrs Roberta Enyonam Otriso, that the boy had accompanied his father on a fishing expedition on the Densu River.
The boy and his father had first harvested fish and were casting their net for the second harvest when Daniel approached them.
The complainant said Daniel claimed the net Abateye was using belonged to him (Daniel).
When his father denied that claim, Daniel went to the bank of the river and invited the two others to join him to beat Abateye with a piece of bamboo.
Harvested fish
The accused persons ordered Abateye to come out of his canoe and when he obeyed their order, his harvested fish was emptied from the net into the river.
According to the prosecution, Daniel took Abateye’s fishing net to the bank and handed it over to his (Daniel’s) mother to send it home and returned to join the two in the beating.
Meanwhile, they ordered the boy to swim to the bank or they would kill him.
The boy, therefore, swam for safety and informed his father’s auntie who accompanied him to the police station to lodge a complaint.
It was said that Abateye fell into the river when one of the accused persons hit his head with a bamboo.
Body found in river
The police, the prosecution said, went to the crime scene with the complainants and, with the help of a search party, found the body of the deceased in the river.
The prosecutor said through police investigations, the suspects were arrested later from their hideout at Weija.
The fishing net was also retrieved from the mother of two of the suspects, Daniel and Eric.
Remand
The prosecutor suggested that the suspects be remanded to enable the police to complete their investigations.
The accused were refused bail and remanded into prison custody to reappear on June 13, 2014.
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