MOHAMMED KAMARA v. REPUBLIC

JUDGMENT

SOWAH, J.A.

The appellant, who is a Sierra Leonian resident in Ghana, was charged with others at large with Robbery contrary to section 149 of the Criminal Code 1960, Act 29 as amended by Act 646. He was said to have robbed one Muntari Adamu of cash sum of GH¢8,000.00 at gunpoint at his residence at Race Course in Accra on 4th September 2008. After trial, he was convicted of the offence and sentenced to 15 years IHL, and to be deported after serving his sentence in a judgment dated 13th October 2011.

The appellant promptly filed a Notice of appeal against conviction on 4th November 2011. The stated ground of appeal was:

1. That the identification that he was taken as the criminal because he had open teeth was wrong in law.

On 30th May 2012, he filed the following additional grounds of appeal:

1. That there was gross miscarriage of justice when the trial judge, instead of following normal procedure in adjudicating, decided to hear the evidence of the appellant before hearing the case of the prosecution. Hence the defence was heard on 26th February 2009, whilst the prosecution started on 10th September 2009.

2. That principle of fair trial date laid out in the 1992 Constitution, made it mandatory for the trial court to undertake to obtain the attendance of witnesses for the prosecution as well as those of the accused. That the trial judge erred in law by asking Appellant, an accused in custody, to make his “own arrangements” to get the attendance of his witnesses (Refer page 18 of the record of court proceedings)

3. That this was in spite of the fact that Appellant indicated to the court his potential witnesses, i.e. his landlady and her daughters. Hence the trial court failed to use its powers to subpoena witnesses to help in ensuring fairness and justice.

4. That by re-hearing the evidence of the prosecution and allowing the swapping of PW2 to PW1, PW3 to PW2 and PW1 to PW3, the trial judge was biased and thus the trial was prejudicial to the accused and, evidently there was substantial miscarriage of justice.

5. That it is obvious that all the prosecution witnesses were in court when accused was making his defence before the re-hearing of the prosecution’s case since the witnesses were permitted to sit in court after giving their first round of evidence which was not captured in the Record of proceedings.

6. That there was no clue to the commission of the offence of robbery as per the visit to the alleged crime scene by PW4 wher