AKPELEAFASI vs. THE STATE

JUDGMENT OF MILLS-ODOI J.S.C. Mills-Odoi J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellant was charged with murdering his wife and was convicted of this crime at the criminal session of the High Court held at Ho at a trial before Siriboe J. and a jury on 3 March 1963. The case for the prosecution, so far as it is relevant to this appeal, is that the deceased who was a dealer in locally manufactured gin, lived with her parents at Blekusu, a village in the Volta Region. The appellant also lived in the same village, but in a different house not far from the deceased’s. On 1 January 1963, at about 7 p.m. the appellant went to the house of his wife whom he saw in her kitchen carrying one of her twin babies who was about six months old. At the entrance of the kitchen sat the deceased’s cousin, the second prosecution witness, who was enjoying himself over a glass of gin which the deceased had given him. In a manner characteristic of the custom of villagers, both the deceased a...