MINOR, 16, IN K’SI PRISON

…Social Welfare awaits his release
STORY: FROM JAMES APPIAKORANG JR., KUMASI, A/R

The Social Welfare Department in Kumasi has ascertained the age of a 16-year-old minor who was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by a Kumasi Circuit Court last month.

Speaking to Today, the Regional Director of the Social Welfare Department, Mr. Jacob Achillo, said, they have after their investigations, verified that the victim is really a minor, and should therefore not be in the same prison with adults.

It would be recalled that Today in one of our editions reported that the victim (name withheld) is said to have been arrested and handed over to the police after he, in the company of three others, tried robbing a house in Kumasi.

His other accomplices absconded, while he was apprehended and handed over to the police who processed him for court.

However, just as he stepped in the prison yard after his sentence, prison officers suspected he was a minor and unfit to co-habit the same prison with adults and hence quickly informed the Social Welfare Department which eagerly offered to investigate his real age.

Mr. Achillo said, the department has secured a medical report that shows that he is really a minor, and had thus applied to the Attorney-General’s Department to ensure the freedom of the minor.
“The Attorney-General promised to help us get him out if we are able to prove he is really a minor, and I believe that as we have sent the medical report, they shall soon begin the process to ensure his release,” he told this reporter on phone.

He said, the AG would, in a higher court of jurisdiction, petition against the sentencing of the boy by the Kumasi Circuit Court to secure an order to over-turn the earlier pronouncement of the circuit court.

He promised the Department is very interested in what the teenager will be up to after his release, and so they will follow up to see his parents and seek to know what plans they have for him. That will help the Department ascertain “whether they will send him to school or help him to learn a trade or vocation,” he proposed.

“Even though they didn’t do well in jailing the boy,” he said, “sometimes the stature of the suspect could be deceptive. These days you meet teenagers who are well-statured and look like adults, so in such cases determining their ages is not easy,” he explained.

Mr. Achillo was however displeased with and questioned the performance of the prosecution and the trial judge of the circuit court whom, he thought, could have delved into the age of the victim before starting the trial process.