Man, 63, convicted of manslaughter

The Wa High Court presided over by Justice Alhaji Yussif Asibey has sentenced a 63-year-old businessman, Yunussah Abdul Rahaman, to 23 years in hard labour for killing two persons in Wa.

Abdul-Rahman was found guilty of two counts of manslaughter and three counts of causing unlawful harm.

He shot and killed Stephen Mane, 64, a retired lecturer of the Hilla Limann Technical University, and Iddris Alhassan, 46, an administrative staff of the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, and caused harm to three others - Haruna Umar, Hamza Hamid Eransung and Umar Amish.

Contrary to the two murder charges preferred against the convict, the seven-member jury rather returned a verdict of manslaughter against the convict on the two murder charges and unanimously found him guilty on the three counts of causing unlawful harm.

Sentence

Following the guilty verdict passed by the jury, the court sentenced Abdul Rahaman to 23 years in prison with hard labour on each of the manslaughter charges and 15 years each for causing unlawful harm.

The sentences were to run concurrently.  

In addition to the custodial sentences, Justice Asibey further ordered the convict to pay a compensation of GH¢40,000 each to the three victims, who sustained gunshot wounds from the assault of the convict.

According to the court, the sentence and the compensation were without prejudice to any further actions that the families of the deceased and the victims may want to take against the convict.

Facts

The facts as presented to the court by the Principal State Attorney, Abdul-Shaquir Saeed, were that on March 17, 2022, the convict had a call from his workers that some members of his family had stopped them from working on his land at Napogbakole, a suburb of Wa.

The said land was a subject of dispute between the convict and his family.

He said the convict took his Tundra pick-up with registration number GE-650-13 and his pump action gun and went to the site.

The convict is said to have shot in an attempt to disperse the crowd that had besieged the land, but in the process, the bullets hit Mane and Alhassan, who were not part of the people who had besieged the land, as well as the three others who sustained gunshot injuries.

Mane died on the spot, while Alhassan sustained gunshot wounds and was rushed to the Wa Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.