Ebenezer Sowah, Manager of a fuel filing station, has been accused of engaging the services of landguard to encroach on land allegedly belonging to a pensioner, Rosemary Cudjoe.
Sowah was arraigned before an Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Samuel Bright Acquah, yesterday, on charges of conspiracy to commit a crime, prohibition of land guard activities, and attempt to commit crime.
He was put before the court together with the fourth accused (A4) in the case, Henry Owusu Atta, a taxi driver and electrician, for unlawful entry.
Both accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charges, and have been granted bail in the sum of GH¢50,000.00 and one surety each. They were further ordered by the court to report to the police once a week, and make sure they stayed at least 200 metres away from the disputed land.
There were two other persons – Patrick Borquaye Nii Amassah (A2), banker, and Jeremiah Nii Ashale Brown (A3) – involved in the case.
Mr. Acquah was told that while A2 was at large, Paul Kumi, counsel for A3, submitted a medical report to the court with the claim that his client was on medical admission.
The court has, therefore, adjourned the plea of Jeremiah Nii Ashale Brown to be taken on April 6.
Brief facts:
The case, according to the prosecuting officer, Chief Inspector Isaac Anquandah, the complainant is Rosemary Cudjoe, a pensioner and a resident of North Kaneshie.
The accused persons, Ebenezer Sowah, Patrick Borquaye Nii Amassah, Jeremiah Nii Ashale Brown and Henry Owusu Atta, are businessmen, banker and electrician respectively.
He informed the court that in the year 1998, the complainant, Rosemary Cudjoe, acquired a parcel of land at Baatsona-Spintex from the Nii Amasah Nii-Whano Family of Nungua.
The complainant fenced the land and put up a four-bedroom uncompleted house on it and placed Adams Agbemasu as a caretaker on the land.
However, sometime on June 1st and 2nd, 2022, the accused persons, who claimed to be the grandsons of complainant’s grantor, went to the land to prevent the complainant’s workmen from further development of the land.
The complainant, therefore, petitioned the Director-General of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, and Ebenezer and Patrick were invited, but failed to honour the police invitation.
Later, within the same month, Ebenezer and Patrick led thugs dressed in military uniform with masks on their faces to threaten the occupants on the land, who are living in wooden structures, to vacate the land within two weeks or risk losing their lives.
Later in October, 2022, Ebenezer and Patrick engaged the services of Jeremiah and others who went to the land to threatened and harassed the occupants, and caused damage to part of the complainant’s fence wall and the caretakers wooden structures, and warned them to vacate the land or be killed the next time they visited the land.
On March 10, 2023, Ebenezer and Patrick allegedly engaged the services of four men, who went to the land to remove one of the gates and took it away after seizing the cell phone of Winifred Arthur, a neighbour who took a video of the incident, and deleted the video from her phone.
Furthermore, on March 14, 2023, around 6.00am, Ebenezer called Henry Owusu Atta on phone and directed him to the complainant’s fenced land to disconnect the squatters’ source of electricity from the main grid at a fee of GH¢150.00 in order to render their stay on the land difficult, but he was arrested.
On the same day, March 14, Ebenezer and Jeremiah were arrested and cautioned.
The court was told that Patrick was at large and that efforts were underway to get him arrested.
