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Lawyers of the United Kingdom-based pastor who has been charged for murdering his British wife at a hotel in Koforidua, will on May 28, 2015, apply for bail for the accused person at the High Court.

The new development followed an advice from the Attorney-General’s (A-G) to the prosecution for Pastor Eric Isaiah Adusah of the Global Light Revival Ministries Church in Totteham in the United Kingdom to be granted bail. 

The resort to the High Court is because the Accra Magistrate’s Court, which is currently hearing the case, does not have the jurisdiction to grant the accused bail.

Consequently the presiding judge, Ms Marian Affoh, asked the defence team to apply for bail at the High Court.

The accused will, however, continue to remain in police custody until the determination of the bail application at the High Court. 

Autopsy report
Charmaine Speirs, the wife of the accused person, was found dead in her room at the Mac Dic Royal Plaza Hotel in Koforidua on March 20, 2015, three days after her husband had checked out of the hotel. 

She was three months pregnant.

An autopsy report from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on Charmain said she had died of “overdose of opiate heroin.”

Bail application
At previous sittings, the lead counsel for the accused person, Nana K. N. Adomako Acheampong, said since the autopsy report did not name his client as the one responsible for his wife’s death, he could not be held liable.

He said at the time Charmaine died, her husband was busily engaged in his pastoral work in the UK.

He, therefore, prayed the court to take judicial notice of the second cause of death, an overdose of heroin.

He argued that the British woman could have been responsible for her own death, as she might have injected the heroin.

He also urged the court to take into consideration the fact that the woman was alone in the hotel room at the time the incident occurred and, therefore, the cause of her death could not be blamed on her husband.

According to Mr Acheampong, when Charmaine’s death was reported to her husband in the UK, he flew back to Ghana.

Counsel, therefore, asked the court to admit the accused person to bail, since his continued detention for the past two weeks infringed on his basic human rights.

Bail denied
The court, however, declined to grant the bail application on the grounds that it was beyond the jurisdiction of the Magistrate Court to grant bail in a homicide charge.

The court told the counsel that he reserved the right to apply for bail at the Human Rights Court.

Background
The body of Charmaine was found three days after Pastor Adusah had checked out of the Royal Mac Dic Plaza where they were lodging.

The Charmaine and her husband had checked into the hotel on March 16 and were scheduled to check out on March 21, this year. 

However, the husband checked out the next day, en route to Europe, with specific instructions that his wife did not want to be disturbed and would, therefore, call the reception if she needed anything.

Between March 18 and 20, Chairmaine neither called the reception nor came out of her room.

However, when the check out time was due, the hotel workers found the door to the room locked and they decided to force it open, only to find the woman dead.