KWAKU OFORI v. THE STATE

JUDGMENT OF BLAY J.S.C.

Blay J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellant in this case was charged in the High Court, Ashanti Criminal Session, Kumasi, with the murder of one Afua Dopoh. He was found guilty by a jury and condemned to death by Bannerman J., and it is against this conviction and sentence that he has appealed to this court. Before this court, counsel for the appellant abandoned all the original grounds of appeal appearing in the appeal record, and with the leave of the court, three fresh ones were substituted, namely, "(a) That conviction was unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to the evidence. (b) That the trial judge erred in admitting inadmissible evidence. (c) That the conviction and sentence cannot stand having regard to all the circumstances of the case."

The case against the appellant as appears on the record of proceedings in the High Court may briefly be stated as follows: That the deceased was married to the appellant with whom she had five children, three of whom were alive, the youngest being six months old; that after the birth of the last child, misunderstanding arose between the deceased and the appellant which resulted in the deceased refusing to continue the marriage with the appellant.

The appellant who was a member of the Roman Catholic community of the village, tried to get the elders of the church to resolve the difference between him and his wife, but the deceased refused to be reconciled and the [p.454] marriage between the two was formally dissolved according to custom. Some time after the dissolution of the marriage, the appellant was seen by one Agnes Antwi, a niece of his, near her mother's farm carrying his youngest child. The appellant there handed the child to the said Agnes Antwi with instructions that she should hold the child until the mother arrived to collect him. Agnes Antwi said she waited for a long time in the farm and as the child's mother, the deceased, did not turn up, she left with her mother to return to the village, and that on the way to the village she met a crowd of people, mostly relatives of the deceased, and her mother joined them to go to the farm of the deceased. She, Agnes Antwi, proceeded to the village where on arrival she saw her uncle, the appellant, tied up and lying in the house of Kwaku Nsiah.

How the appellant got to Kwaku Nsiah's house was narrated by two witnesses, the third and fourth witnesses for the prosecution. They each deposed that on the