British fugitive for court today
Hearing of the extradition of Arthur Simpson-Kent, a British citizen accused of murdering his girlfriend and two children in London, did not come off at the Kaneshie Magistrate Court on Monday.
State Attorneys request for adjournment to today was granted because Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) officials were not in court.
Meanwhile, Ghana is yet to receive a formal request from the British authorities for the extradition of Simpson-Kent.
Arthur Simpson-Kent is alleged to have killed a former EastEnders 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, last Saturday, January 9, 2016.
Suspect arrested
The suspect, on realising that the police were getting closer to his hideout, came out, pulled a knife and threatened to stab anybody who came closer to him. But he was disarmed and arrested.
Extradition
Following his arrest, Simpson-Kent is expected to be extradited to the United Kingdom (UK) to face trial, but the Attorney-General (AG) and Minister of Justice, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Opong told the
Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that the AG’s Department was yet to receive a formal request to that effect from the British government.
“A request was made for the suspect’s arrest and that was successfully chalked up by the police,” Mrs Appiah-Opong said and added “we can only begin the process for extradition when a formal request is made.”
Background
The 49-year-old suspect was said to have travelled to Glasgow, Scotland, to Amsterdam and finally landed in Ghana on December 19, 2015.
The UK authorities have accordingly been informed of the arrest, a security source said.
The bodies of Sian Blake, 43, Zachary, eight, and Amon, four, were discovered in the garden of their London home last week Tuesday.
