We Cut Victim�s Throat �And Drained his Blood � Fetish Priest

Kwaku Teteza, the fetish priest involved in the Anloga murder case, has now confessed and given a harrowing account of how the murder was plotted and committed. Teteza, 28, disclosed that he lured the victim, Peter Tamakloe, 33, a welder, from Accra, to his shrine at Anloga under the pretext of performing rituals for him to get rich. At an uncompleted building behind the shrine, he asked Tamakloe to kneel on a red calico, and he and his accomplices tied the hands behind and blindfolded him before hitting him on the head with an iron rod. When the victim fell down unconscious, they cut his throat with a dagger and drained the blood into plastic containers for their own purposes. After the gruesome act, they carried the body and buried it in a grave they had previously dug in another part of the building. These were contained in his caution statement read to the Anloga Magistrate�s Court last Wednesday. Teteza and his accomplices, Kofi Letsu, alias Koffa, and John Affizie, alias Auto, are provisionally charged with murder. Another suspect, Agbenyega Agbavor, is on the run. Teteza disclosed that he had a phone call from Affizie, a friend resident at Kwabenya in Accra, that he owed Tamakloe, a neighbor, an amount of GH3,000 which he was demanding back to help finance the funeral of his father. According to him, Affizie said he had managed to convince Tamakloe that he could help perform rituals for him to get rich. He then suggested they lure Tamakloe to Anloga and eliminate him so that he could be free. Teteza said he informed Agbenyega who agreed to the suggestion, and Affizie called back on July 8, that Tamakloe had raised GH4,000 for the rituals and he (Affizie) had taken GH2,000 as part payment for them to share. They then convinced Tamakloe to come down to Anloga for the rituals to be performed. Tamakloe subsequently went to Anloga on July 11, and he met him at a lodge at about 4pm. They then called Agbenyega on phone to inform him of Tamakloe�s arrival. Teteza said he and Tamakloe met with Agbenyega and Koffa behind his house, at 9pm, and they proceeded to the uncompleted building behind the shrine, at Afatome, a suburb of Anloga, at 12 midnight, ostensibly for the rituals. Agbenyega spread a red calico on the ground, and they squatted on it, while he Teteza proceeded to perfume fake rituals, and Tamakloe, who became convinced, permitted them to blindfold him. After the murder, they drained the blood into containers and buried one at a spot in the compound, while Agbenyega took one big Voltic bottle full of the blood. They asked Koffa to stand guard at the entrance to the building while they buried the body in the grave which Koffa had dug on July 9, in readiness for the murder. They then went to his house where he gave Koffa GH300 out of the GH2,000 they collected from Tamakloe as final payment, and warned him not to reveal the secret to anyone or he would suffer the same fate. When the murder was exposed, they fled the town. He left to Nigeria, while Koffa hid in Accra until he was arrested. Teteza, who was traced to Nigeria, was arrested and repatriated to Ghana through the assistance of the International Police (INTERPOL) He denied involvement in the murder during interrogation, until Koffa was arrested at a mechanic�s workshop near the Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout in Accra. Koffa�s arrest was the turning point in the investigations, as he revealed how the act was committed in the uncompleted building, and led the police to dig out the container with some of the victim�s blood. This became the last straw, and Teteza had no option than to confess the plot and narrate the events of the fateful day, Friday, July 11. The Ghanaian Times on July 23 reported that the Anloga Police had launched a manhunt for Teteza, for allegedly murdering the 33-year-old welder from Accra, at Anloga in the Keta Municipality. The report had indicated that the fetish priest and an accomplice, Koffa, allegedly killed Peter Tamakloe, on Friday, July 11, and buried him in an uncompleted building at Afatome. The deceased who lost his father the previous month, was allegedly carrying on him GH5,000 to finance the renovation of the family house ahead of his father�s funeral at Woe, near Anloga, this month. According to the Anloga police, a report was received form the Kwabenya Police in Accra on July 17, from Mr. Robert Tamakloe and Mr. Gideon Tamakloe, that their brother, Peter Tamakloe, had travelled to their hometown, Woe, near Anloga, on July 11, but did not reach his destination. On the same day, information reached the Anloga police that the deceased was last seen in the company of a fetish priest at Afatome, a suburb of Anloga. Chief Inspector Sampson Oduro said the house of the fetish priest was traced, but he was not available and a search of the place yielded no results. At about 10:30pm, information gathered revealed that someone had been buried in a grave which had been dug by Koffa, an errand boy of the fetish priest, in an uncompleted building at about mid-day of July 9. Mr. Oduro said the police mounted surveillance and on July 18, they visited the scene and upon critical investigation, found that a human body was buried in it. An exhumation order was subsequently obtained from District Coroner and when the body was exhumed, it was found to be a male which was identified by the complainants as Peter Tamakloe, partially decomposed. Mr. Oduro said the neck was slashed with a sharp object, the face blind-folded with a black scarf, and the mouth gagged with a red scarf, while both hands were tied behind him with a rope and the legs, with a cord. He said the body was conveyed to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, where an autopsy was performed. Mr. Oduro said investigations established that Teteza, Koffa, Agbenyega and John Affizie, an intimate friend of the deceased, introduced Tamakloe to the fetish priest and together, they conspired and murdered him. He said based on that information, Affizie was arrested at Kwabenya on August 1 and sent to Anloga for investigations. A manhunt has been launched for Agbenyega following the arrest of the others. Meanwhile, the deceased has since been buried, and information available indicates that his father will be laid to rest this Saturday, October 25.