Sakawa Killers In Magistrate Court

The Police have withdrawn the murder case involving three men who allegedly beheaded a 12-year-old boy for ritual purposes from the circuit court to a magistrate court. Yesterday, a Sunyani Magistrate Court presided over by Joseph Mensah slapped the suspects, who are now four, with a two-week remand in prison custody. The first three, Sumaila Yahaya, 32, Akwasi Kuma aka Mon Amie, 48, and Yaw Fosu, 28, at their first appearance at a Sunyani Circuit Court on May 17, were given a two week-remand. The fourth suspect, a Techiman-based spiritualist, Mallam Musa Bamba, whose house prime suspect Sumaila sent the severed head to, has also been grabbed. He made his first appearance in court alongside the first three suspects. The spiritualist was arrested after the police�s intensive intelligence work allegedly linked him directly to the crime. Superintendent Frederick Adjei, Brong Ahafo Regional Chief Prosecutor, told Daily Guide that the case was withdrawn to the magistrate court because it was the only court mandated by law to start what he called �committal proceedings� in murder cases. He said after the committal proceedings are over, the case would then be transferred to the high court for trial. According to him, in murder cases the circuit court had no business sitting on it, but they initially sent the suspects to that court because none of the magistrate courts in the area was sitting by then. The four men are believed to have conspired to kill 12-year-old Kwame Amoah at Bompa, near Atebubu. The fifth suspect, Alidu Wala at Apoma, a farming community in the Kintampo South District, who is now at large, is being looked for by the police. Sumaila Yahaya, who was first seen with the severed human head, was arrested on May 6 at the residence of Mallam Musa Bamba, whose brother hinted the police about the human head, leading to Sumaila�s arrest. His accomplices, Akwasi Kuma and Yaw Fosu, were arrested three days later at Bompa near Atebubu, where the decomposing body of Kwame Amoah was also found. After his arrest at Techiman, Sumaila Yahaya gave conflicting information to the police about the source of the severed head. He initially told the police that he got the human head from a dead body that had been buried at Kunsu in the Kintampo area. However, the police could not trace the torso after searching the area. Sumaila Yahaya later changed his story and told the police that someone called Alidu Wala at Apoma, now at large, handed over to him the severed human head for the rituals, which also could not be established. The prime suspect finally led the police to the Atebubu area where the decomposing body of his victim was found, leading to the arrest of his accomplices at the same village.