THE REPUBLIC v BISMARK OWUSU ANSAH @ OBESE & 9 OTHERS
2024
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- HIS LORDSHIP JUSTICE DR. POKU ADUSEI
Areas of Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Evidence Law
2024
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
During a summary robbery trial, the sixth accused invoked a statutory alibi, asserting he spent 19 January 2021 at home with his wife in Manso Abirim. The court ordered an investigation which placed the wife in a different town and found A6’s phone inactive. At the voir dire A6 neither testified nor called his wife, instead presenting witnesses whose testimonies contradicted the alibi notice by placing him at a mining site elsewhere. Applying the principle that the accused bears the burden of proving an alibi on a balance of probabilities, and considering contradictions and lack of corroboration, the Court of Appeal (per Dr. Poku Adusei JA sitting as trial judge) ruled that the plea of alibi was not made out and directed that the substantive trial proceed.
<u>Dr. Poku Adusei, J.A.</u>
In the summary trial of the accused persons on three counts of offences involving robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery, the sixth accused (A6) raised a defence of alibi in connection with his arrest and person Simply put, A6 contended that he was at a different place where the alleged offence was committed. The plea of alibi is available to any person accused of an offence by virtue of section 131(1)(a) of the Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act, 1960 (Act 30) . The section provides that:
"(1) Where an accused intends to forward as a defence a plea of alibi, the accused shall give notice of the alibi, to the prosecutor or counsel with particulars as to the time and place and of the witnesses by whom it is proposed to prove, (a) prior, in the case of a summary trial; to the examination of the first witness for the prosecution, and..."
In an effort to establish his plea of alibi; the notice of A6 stated that:
The 6t accused person shall say that when the alleged offence committed on the 19th of January 2021 at Adansi was Nyankomasu Community in the Ashanti Region of the Republic of Ghana, he was in his hometown at Manso Abirim with his wife, Diana Asamoah, the whole and did not go out.
The 6th accused person shall call as witnesses: (i) Bismark Owusu Ansah @ Obese who is the 1st accused person in the case who shall say that when he was arrested and was being beaten by the police; he was asked to mention other accomplices which he reluctantly mentioned 6th accused person so as to end his tortures and beatings; and
(ii) Diana Asamoah who is the wife of the 6th accused person shall say that she was with the 6th accused person on the said date and the 6th accused person could not have been at the place where the crime was alleged to have been committed.
The plea of alibi of A6 prompted the court to order the prosecution to undertake an enquiry into the claims. The investigative report in regards to the plea of alibi of A6 was filed in court on 05/06/2023.
In conducting investigations into the defence of alibi, the investigators probed the whereabout of A6 and his wife by using their active mobile records. The phone records showed that the mobile number (0595816240) given by A6 as his number was not in active use before , during and after the alleged robbery 19/01/2021. The active records of the wife of A6 (0247500120) showed that she was not at Manso Abirim on 19/01/2021. Rather the report in