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A 25-year-old galamsey operator who allegedly murdered his brother in cold blood in the wee hours of Wednesday at Akokoase in the Birim North District of the Eastern Region, over a parcel of land bequeathed to them by their deceased father, has appeared before the Mpraeso Circuit Court on a provisional charge of murder. Kwadwo Debrah Doku was said to have sneaked into his brother�s room at night around 1.45 am, with a machete and hacked the latter to death after a misunderstanding between them over the sale of the land. Sources told DAILY GUIDE that Kwadwo Doku had persistently been having arguments with his brother, Kwaku Boateng, 50, over the sale of the land to small-scale miners since the area was rich in gold. The sources said Doku felt that the land should not have been sold by the brother since he was himself an illegal miner or galamsey operator and stood to benefit from the land. According to sources, Doku had once threatened his brother with death and warned him not to sell the land. However, the deceased went ahead with the sale of the land, and this infuriated Doku who, under the cover of darkness, hacked the brother to death and almost severed his head from the body. After murdering his brother, Doku tried to escape but some of the tenants who saw him leaving the house after the heinous crime raised an alarm. The youth of the town formed a search party and combed the area to arrest him. Luckily, they were able to trace him to a near-by village where they saw him hiding in a bush. The youth of the town thus arrested him the same day with a blood-stained shirt and handed him over to the police at Nkawkaw where he was immediately charged with the offence of murder and put before the Mpraeso Circuit Court. Detective Sergeant C.T. Ampronti said there was evidence upon which Doku could be convicted because apart from the frequent threats on the life of his brother, his shirt was stained with blood when he was arrested by the youth. Doku however told the police that he did not know anything about the death of his brother and therefore pleaded not guilty to the provisional murder charge in court. He was remanded into prison custody to allow police to conduct further investigations into the matter.