Teacher freed after 15 years in jail

• Posted on January 27, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Supreme Court (SC) has in a unanimous decision acquitted and discharged one Eric Asante, a teacher.

He was jailed for 15 years with hard labour by a Tamale High Court in 2005 for defiling and impregnating a 14-year-old girl student – Rubamatu Mohammed – then student of Nyorhini Presby Junior High School.

But the teacher insisted he had no knowledge about the allegation but was still convicted.

The five-member panel of justices, presided over by Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, held that the totality of evidence of Rubamatu Mohammed’s (the victim’s) case leaves so much doubt.

The panel unanimously ruled that his conviction could not be supported by evidence, noting that there were doubts created in the evidence of the victim.

According to the court, a DNA test conducted showed that Mr. Asante was also not the biological father of the victim’s son.

The court noted that the victim was not truthful when she testified before the lower court, although medical report on her 23 weeks’ pregnancy was not in doubt.

Judgement

According to the judgement delivered by Justice Gabriel Pwamang, the then trial judge would not have convicted Eric if he had known what they (SC judges) know today.

Citing the result of the DNA test which the court had accepted as “new evidence” in the case, the judges stated that the prosecution was misled by the presence of the pregnancy.

He said the test had “excluded” Eric as the father of the 10-year-old boy, whose paternity had been a matter of litigation, adding that it could not be said that the pregnancy at the time had nothing to do with the conviction of the accused.

The five-member panel of judges further opined that apart from the testimony of the victim and the medical report, there was no other proof from the prosecution witnesses because none of them saw the sexual act which was done in “secret.”

The court said the testimony of the victim in respect of the case was false.

Justice Pwamang stated that the conviction of Eric Asante could not be supported with the evidence before the court.

He, however, indicated that since Eric had finished serving his sentence, the case was a good example of people wrongly convicted for offences they had not committed.

The court, as a result, acquitted and discharged Eric, ordering him to apply formally for a decision to be taken for compensation.

Other judges on the panel were Justices Suley Gbadegbe, P. Baffoe Bonnie and Yaw Appau.

Contempt

The court, at its previous sitting, ordered Rubamatu to make the child available for the test after her failure to do so as earlier instructed by the court.

Eric’s lawyers had initially urged the apex court to cite Rubamatu and two others for contempt for failing to make the child available for the DNA test as ordered by the court.

She was purported to have gone into hiding to evade service by the bailiffs of the court.

In the application for committal for contempt, the lawyer had, among other things, stated that the conduct of the respondents was deliberate, knowing fully well that his client (Eric) never had sex with Rubamatu.

Ms Mohammed, who said she works at Mamprugu, stated that she did not know of the order for the DNA test.

Juliet Tuinjina, an aunt of Mohammed and the second respondent in the case, said the baby was not in her custody.

The third respondent, Gladys Abokokpa, elder sister of the complainant, also in an attempt to purge herself of the contempt charge, said she was in school when the order was served, adding that the child was with her (Gladys’) mother who had died.

AG Tasked

Meanwhile, Eric, in the company of his human right lawyer, Francis Xavier Sosu, yesterday told journalists that he was happy justice had been served.

Although Eric indicated that he would leave the issue of compensation from the state to his lawyer, he said the Attorney General must re-open investigation into the matter.

“I wish that the AG’s Department can open investigation into the matter. Per the judgement of the court, it means that there is a true culprit out there who committed the crime and connived with the lady to implicate me. The person is hiding in our society, committing a lot of crimes but nobody gets him punished,” he averred.

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson