AMLALO vs. THE REPUBLIC

Anin J.A. delivered the judgment of the court. The villagers of Ekeyeamezor near Axim woke up in the morning of 8 September 1974 to discover pilfering among their backyard poultry. Not unnaturally their suspicion fell on two persons, Avor Kojo and Kofi Takyi, who had acquired considerable notoriety in that little community for stealing poultry. On this occasion, the real evidence of an abandoned trap and chicken feathers strewn higgledy-piggledy in a compound convinced the simple village-folk of the stealthy nocturnal trapping of their fowl and the clandestine consumption of the booty by the suspects. Upon the discovery of the theft, the appellant and his brother Kofi Ahele lost no time in challenging and quarrelling with Kofi Takyi and Avor Kojo respectively. In the trial at the Sekondi High Court, the prosecution relied on the evidence of two persons who claimed to be eye-witnesses of this quarrel. The first witness, Samuel Quarm, described how the appellant and his brother o...