The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has activated processes to suspend a final-year Business Administration student on trial for allegedly raping a first-year female student.
Joel Osei Owusu and his accomplice, L/Cpl Frank Adu Poku, are currently on trial for the alleged rape incident on July 19, 2022.
The police officer, stationed at the Bomso in Kumasi, has since been interdicted.
“You know, the police administration will not shield anybody who tries to bring the name of the police service into disrepute. Our image is very, very important to us, so anybody who finds himself in an issue of this sort, the administration will quickly take action on it, and then the police administration did that by interdicting the officer,” said ACP Kofi Blagodzi, Ashanti regional head of legal and prosecutions.
He addressed the Asokore Mampong District Court on Tuesday before the sitting magistrate denied the two accused persons bail for the second time.
The two were remanded into police custody on July 28th, 2022.
It followed a strong opposition to a bail application filed by the lawyers for the two.
The development comes as the prosecution told the court a duplicate docket has been sent to the Attorney-General’s office for advice.
The prosecution, led by ACP Kofi Blagodzi, told the court presided over by His Worship Buabin Quansah, that the prosecution awaits advice from the Attorney General’s office after a duplicate docket on the matter was forwarded.
Proceedings in court
The lawyer for the first accused, Sarfo Duku, said his client should be granted bail since every offence is bailable. He added that since the student is a final year student and is set to write his final graduation exams, the court should grant him bail to enable him time to prepare for the exams.
Counsel for the second accused person, Kwaku Yeboah Akowuah, said since the docket has been submitted to the Attorney General’s office, his client should not be kept in police custody.
According to him, that could mean police have completed their investigations, adding that since police know the accused person’s place of abode and are prepared to cooperate with the police and attend court proceedings, he should be granted bail.
But their arguments were shot down by the prosecution led by ACP Blagodzi, who mounted a strong opposition to the bail application.
He told the court that police investigations into the case are ongoing and that the Asokore Mampong District Court lacks jurisdiction to grant bail in a first-degree felony case.
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On the argument that the first accused will write his final exams, he told the court lawyer for the KNUST that he has hinted at processes to suspend the accused person, and that there is no need to grant him bail to write his exams.
“We opposed the bail application because our argument was that the magistrate court, which is the court of first instance, has no jurisdiction to grant bail in indictable offenses to the first-degree offence and again, as we indicated, we forwarded the docket to the Attorney General and they perused the case docket and advised on it before committal proceedings could proceed,” ACP Blagodzi told Joynews.
The Magistrate in his ruling denied them because of the public interest attached to the case. The hearing is adjourned to August 29, 2022.
SOURCE: CITINEWS
