Send me to UK, murder suspect tells court

• Posted on January 27, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Arthur Simpson-Kent, the boyfriend of ex-East Enders actress Sian Blake, who has been accused of murdering the actress and their two sons, has waived his extradition process before a High Court yesterday.

He has voluntarily decided to subject himself to the laws of the United Kingdom (UK), where he faces charges that have been levelled against him.

Lawyer for the accused, Justice Srem-Sai told the court after a 30-minute deliberation with his client that Simpson-Kent was not running away from justice, and that he was not in Ghana to avoid criminal proceedings in the UK.

“Based on that, Simpson-Kent does not think that the extradition process would be necessary for him to return to the UK, and he is submitting himself voluntarily to be taken back to the UK”, he said.

Justice Mrs Merley Wood, the presiding judge, who was taken aback by Simpson-Kent’s decision, asked the accused: “Are you willing to give yourself voluntarily to the British authorities without the extradition process?”

The accused responded in the affirmative.

To be double sure, the judge asked: “Were you coerced into coming to that decision?”

Simpson-Kent told the court he was not lured into coming to that decision and that his decision was voluntary.

The presiding judge, after taking into custody all the necessary documents for the extradition that the Attorney-General’s Department of Ghana has received from the British authorities, said, “The accused had made it clear he is voluntarily subjecting himself to the laws of the UK. The Attorney-General of Ghana should therefore expedite processes for his voluntary repatriation while he remains in the Bureau of National Investigation’s (BNI) custody.”

The court further ordered the BNI to grant the accused person access to his lawyers, after Simpson-Kent’s lawyer, Srem-Sai, told the court he has been denied access to his client.

Wearing an orange and black stripped Polo shirt and jeans, Simpson-Kent, 48, maintained a calm posture in court as he nodded to some of the issues.

Principal State Attorney Rebecca Adjalo, who lauded the gesture of the accused and his lawyer for the honourable thing they did, told the court that they had received the depositions authenticated by judicial officers of the UK.

She said the almost 200-page document chronicled and narrated the murders and also identified Simpson-Kent as the fugitive who allegedly committed the murders. “It contains the crime investigation, CCTV footage of the accused journey right up to the time he entered Ghana. The documents were sent to the British High Commission in Ghana, forwarded to the Ghana Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then to the Attorney-General.”

She added that the documents were also forwarded to Ghana’s Minister of the Interior, who is required by law to issue an order for the fugitive’s arrest and extradition.

Immediately after the submission of the State Attorney, Kent’s lawyer asked the court to step down the case for 30 minutes in order for him and his co-lawyers to speak with their client.

He also accused the state agencies of denying him access to his client.

Procedures are expected to be expedited to hand over Simpson-Kent to British officials to be taken back to the UK.

The British officials who were present in court yesterday seemed delighted by the fugitive’s decision to waive the extradition process.

Arthur Simpson-Kent is alleged to have killed a former East Enders actress, Sian Blake, and her two sons and bolted to Ghana days after being questioned about the crime.

The alleged murderer was arrested by a team of police detectives from the Homicide Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), led by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mr Hanson Gove, at his hideout in a thicket at Butre, near the Busua Beach Resort in the Western Region of Ghana, on January 9, 2016.

The 48-year-old suspect was said to have travelled to Glasgow, Scotland, then to Amsterdam, and finally landed in Ghana on December 19, 2015.

The bodies of Sian Blake, 43, Zachary, eight, and Amon, four, were discovered in the garden of their London home on January 5, 2016.

By: Gloria KYEREMEH, Accra