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The Kaneshie District Court has taken Klagon leader Nii Bortey Klan I and six others into custody following the death of Ibrahim Mohammed Abass on a plot of land.
The six, supposed to be land guards, are Hamidu Fuseini alias Sankara; Tahiru Mamudu; Aaron Jacob; Latif Moro; Kwaku Anane aka Kobo; and Richard Annang Kotey.
They face a murder conspiracy and murder charge.
According to the prosecutor, what started as a struggle for land ownership in Klagon ended with the kidnapping of Abass, who was tortured and eventually killed and thrown into the bush in Klagon.
The tribunal, chaired by Ama Adomko Kwakye, rejected their claims.
Three others: Abdul Baasi Mohammed, alias Awudu Buju; Yahaya Mohammed, alias Olu; and Osmanu Ibrahim are said to be on the run.
The defendants are due to reappear in court on Thursday February 18.
A representative of the six, Paul Asibi Abariga, said his clients were not land guards as claimed.
He said the facts, as presented by the prosecution, did not support the charges and urged the court to release his clients.
According to him, the account of the prosecutor, Inspector Richard Amoah, was an attempt to fabricate and concoct stories against the defendants, who were arrested in various places.
The lawyer said that Nii Klan, as a traditional ruler, knew the implications of a murder and therefore would not commit such a crime.
He said it was also incorrect that the prosecution accused him of hiring the six as his land guards.
A lawyer for one of the defendants, Kojo Osei-Odame, urged the court to ask the prosecution to take his client, Kotey, to hospital because he was ill.
But the court, after listening to lawyers and the prosecutor, rejected the accused’s request for release.
However, he urged the prosecution to ensure that the defendants receive the necessary medical care.
Inspector Amoah previously told the court that Nii Klan hired some of the defendants as land guards, while Fuseini was his right-hand man.
Kotey was, however, a film actor and a confidant of Nii Klan.
Inspector Amoah told the court that having been vested by Nii Klan with the authority to keep the land in Klagon, the defendants and those at large, in the course of 2020, were instructed by Nii Klan to prevent Abass to develop parts of the land at the Ramsar Site.
Abass was previously a confidant and instrument in the chef’s installation.
However, following a protracted conflict over the plot of land, Abass defected to the rival faction in the general land dispute in the area.
The prosecution said that Abbass defied the directive not to develop the disputed land, which resulted in a physical confrontation with the defendants, who destroyed the basic structures that Abbass had built amid threats to his. life.
In addition, Nii Klan launched a civil action against Abass and a Gabriel Akotia.
The prosecution said the leader also conspired with Anane, Kotey and Mohammed to kill Abass.
The three and their accomplices are said to have met at Nii Klan’s home on the morning of November 15 of last year in Klagon to execute their plan.
Abass was then attacked by Fuseini and four others as he was riding his motorcycle to his private residence.
He was kidnapped in the middle of gunfire and put in Fuseini’s vehicle and driven to an unknown destination.
However, Abass’s son, who was the victim of the attack on his father, informed his mother and a report was made to the Klagon District Police Command.
Inspector Amoah said the district commander then called Fuseini on his cell phone to introduce Abass to the station, but ignored him.
With the connivance of his accomplices, according to the prosecutor, Fuseini murdered Abass and threw his body in a bush in Klagon.
Abass’s body was then taken to the police hospital morgue where a post-mortem examination by Dr Stephen Annan and Dr Osei Owusu-Afriyie gave the preliminary cause of death as “asphyxiation, strangulation and alleged homicide ”.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor said investigations revealed that after Abass was kidnapped he was taken to Nii Klan’s home and later taken to the Klagon Ramsar site where he was tortured to death.
He said there was evidence of a telephone conversation between Nii Klan and his accomplices before, during and after the crime.
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