ZUTA KWABENA ALIAS KWADJO DONKOR v. THE STATE

JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C.

Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellant was convicted at the High Court, Accra, for the murder of one Tettey Kwabena, his father aged 70 years. He caused the death by shooting the father with a double-barrelled gun.

The appellant is the last of ten children of his parents. Up to about ten years before the incident which led to this case, seven of those ten children had died. Another child, the eighth, one Kofi Baah, died a few weeks before the fateful day. The family were from Dodowa, and are Shai, one of the Adangbe tribes, but live at Akorabo in Akim Abuakwa. The said Kofi Baah was taken to Dodowa his hometown dangerously ill; he died the next day and was there buried; the main funeral custom for him was performed at Dodowa; a smaller funeral was arranged to be celebrated at his village at Kyibu, to begin with a wake-keeping; a small shed was erected for the purpose, and it was in the evening when the wake-keeping was to be held, and a short time before it could start that the tragedy occurred.

While at the funeral in Dodowa, the appellant had accused his father, the deceased, of practising witchcraft, of having killed all his children by his said craft, and having bewitched him, the appellant, and thereby made him sick and impotent; he challenged the father to go with him to a fetish at Ningo called Lakpleku to prove that he was not a wizard; but when the family contributed money and arranged a vehicle for the journey to the oracle, the appellant left Dodowa to go to the village without notice to the family. In a cautioned statement he made to the police upon his arrest, the appellant related the incident as follows:

I fell seriously ill of rheumatic pains and since then my penis became weak and it could not again erect. During my sickness my father Tettey Kwabena told me that he had consulted a fetish priest who told him that my sickness was caused by a certain fetish in his hometown. I have since requested him to take me to the said fetish to perform the rites so that I could recover fully but my father did not heed my entreaties. About four years ago when I became a bit healthy, I went to Ahafo and worked as a farm labourer. While there I visited Wenchi and consulted a certain Mallam who told me that it was my father Tettey Kwabena who was causing my sickness, and [p.548] my impotency. One other trouble which started with those illness was that anytime I take a little alcohol I do not have st