IDRISU GONJA vs. THE STATE [1964]DLSC1910

Date	1964-11-06
Suit No.
Citation No.	[1964]DLSC1910

OLLENNU JSC

ACOLATSE JSC

SIRIBOE J.S.C.

D .K. AFREH FOR THE APPELLANT.

J. N. K. TAYLOR SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY FOR THE RESPONDENT.

[1964]DLSC1910
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													<main id="main" class="content" style="min-height: 60rem" >IDRISU GONJA<o:p></o:p>&nbsp;vs.<o:p></o:p>&nbsp;THE STATE <o:p></o:p>[SUPREME COURT]<o:p></o:p>[1964] GLR 573<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">

DATE:
6 NOVEMBER 1964.<o:p></o:p>

</div>COUNSEL:&nbsp;&nbsp; <o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 0in 0in">

D .K. AFREH FOR THE APPELLANT.<o:p></o:p>

J. N. K. TAYLOR, SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY, FOR THE
RESPONDENT.<o:p></o:p>

</div>CORAM:
<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 0in 0in">

OLLENNU, ACOLATSE AND SIRIBOE JJ.S.C.<o:p></o:p>

</div><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C.<o:p></o:p>Ollennu
J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. This appeal is against conviction
of the appellant for murder upon a verdict of a jury. It raised some very
important points of law. These have been forcefully argued on both sides.
Although some of the points made are interesting, they are nevertheless
irrelevant for the determination of the appeal; it would therefore be enough
just to mention the most important of them in passing, and then proceed to the
main points upon which the decision turned.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The
appellant, the victim of the crime, one Mama Vagala, and the principal witness
in the case lived in Sawla, a town in the Northern Region of Ghana. The case
for the prosecution is that on the night of 7 March 1962, at about 11 p.m. the
first prosecution witness, a woman who traded in pito and akpeteshie drinks,
was sleeping on a mat outside her room when she was awakened by a noise coming
from the direction of her room indicating that some one had entered the room.
She thereupon shouted three times asking who it was that had gone into her
room, but received no reply. Her husband had travelled to a village that day,
so she called out to the deceased who was in his room about five yards away
from hers; the deceased came out from his room and went towards the room of the
first prosecution witness; at the entrance he met the appellant coming out; the
deceased then shouted, “Who are you?” Hardly had the deceased completed the
sentence when he began to groan “Ooh! Ooh”; he dropped to the ground, and the
appellant ran passed him. The first prosecution witness raised the alarm and
people came to the spot. By then Mama Vagala had bled profusely from the mouth
and died. The post mortem examination disclosed that “there was a small cut on
the right side of the mouth. The teeth were all intact; the tongue has been cut
from the tip to the basis—into the left side; half of the tongue was cut; the
tonsil was cut on the interior third. A section of the left carotic artery has
been cut completely; the jugular vein near the carotic artery was also partly
cut.”<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>In the
opinion of the doctor the wound could have been caused by a double edged dagger
which was found lying by the deceased.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The
appellant is a butcher by trade. Upon his arrest he made a statement to the
police on caution; in it he claimed ownership of the dagger and a torchlight
found lying near the deceased, and said among other things that he had given
the dagger to the deceased two days before the fateful day to make a sheath for
it for him, and that in the afternoon of the day in question he collected it,
even though the sheath had not been made, as he needed it to slaughter a goat
the following day. He said that on his way home with the dagger he stopped
under a mango tree to rest awhile, and kept the dagger in the fork of the tree.
When he eventually arrived at his house at about 4.30 p.m. he realised that he
had forgotten the dagger in the fork of the tree, so in the night at about 9.30
p.m. he went to the mango tree and recovered it; he then passed by the house of
the first prosecution witness; the gate of the house, made of flat 44 gallon
drums, was closed; he called out to the first prosecution witness but there was
no response, he then opened the gate, entered the yard of the house and there
saw the first prosecution witness sleeping on a mat in front of her room; he
passed the first prosecution witness and went into her room to take some of her
akpeteshie; whilst in the room he heard the first prosecution witness shout out
asking who was in the room, and later called upon the deceased Mama Vagala; he
said that as he came out of the room he met the deceased in the compound of the
house; the deceased then asked who he was, and at the same time gripped him,
thereupon the dagger cut him on the side of his face; he the appellant then
dropped the dagger and the torchlight he carried at the time, and made his
escape.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>At the
trial the appellant made complete denial of everything, and put up a defence of
alibi. His said defence is most unconvincing. We would point out here, that the
failure of the defence did not relieve the prosecution of the onus which lay
upon them in view of the appellant’s plea of not guilty, to prove his guilt
beyond reasonable doubt. We would add that while a strong defence of alibi
weakens a strong prosecution case, the failure of an alibi, however hopelessly,
cannot strengthen a weak prosecution case. The case of </main>