Judge Chases JB ‘Killer’s Trial Jury3 min read

The court presided over by Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, was clearly not impressed by the absence of some of the jurors who she said, “have consistently refused to appear in the trial that they have been empaneled.”

The prosecution’s eighth and last witness, Chief Augustus Nkrumah, was expected to continue his evidence-in-chief yesterday but the case had to be adjourned because three of the jurors were absent.

The court was not pleased because the witness who was to continue his testimony, the court heard is now a cadet at the Police Training Academy and was only released so he could conclude testifying in the matter.

Justice Lydia Osei Marfo indicated that the jurors had absented themselves a number of times in recent times due to claims government didn’t pay them their allowances.

“I am told their conditions have been met about a month ago. They are not owed and yet some of them have consistently refused to appear in the trials that they have been empaneled,” she indicated.

“The warning should go to them that as from tomorrow (today), any juror that will come to this court late or refused to come to this court in cases they have been empaneled would be sanctioned as the rules stipulates in Act 30,” Justice Marfo warned.

Daniel Asiedu is before the court on a charge of murder while Vincent Bosso has been charged with robbery.

The court has already admitted the confession statement of Asiedu in which he admitted stabbing the late JB Danquah multiple times during a struggle on the night he went to the late MP’s home to rob him.

The admission is contained in a video recorded during the interrogation of the accused as well as videos of a reconstruction of the crime scene in the late MP’s house and were admitted by an Accra High Court where the accused is standing trial for murder.

He told the investigators that he did not know the personality of the late MP prior to robbing him and only chose his room out of the lot in the house because it was the only one that had light turned on when he entered the house.

He indicated that the glass window leading to the late MP’s room was not locked so he slid it open and entered the room, sneaked himself behind a chair and went to the bedside drawer where he picked two phones and just when he was about to leave the room the late MP woke up to turn of a television and spotted him. He said the Late MP shouted ‘thief, thief, thief’.

He said the MP held his (accuser’s) shirt around the neck firmly and he struggled with the MP. It was during the struggle that he said he stabbed the late MP with a jack knife which weakened him and he sat on the floor beside the bed and could not scream for help.