15-year-old juvenile offender who was convicted by an Accra High Court for his role in the murder of 10-year-old Ishmael Mensah Abdallah at Kasoa, has been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.
The juvenile offender was sentenced to a Senior Correctional Home where he will learn a technical vocation.
Appearing before an Accra Juvenile Court on Tuesday, the minor prayed the court for forgiveness.
The 15-year-old juvenile offender was convicted along with his 18-year-old accomplice by the High Court in Accra after they were found guilty by a seven-member jury.
His accomplice Nicolas Kini was sentenced to life imprisonment by the High Court presided over by Justice Lydia Osei Marfo on October 24, 2024.
The GNA gathered that the 15-year-old shed tears when the court asked him whether he had something to say before he was sentenced.
“I plead with the court to forgive me. It was not my intention to kill my dear friend and also end my life this way. I pray that Ishmael’s father will forgive me as I played with Ishmael for a very long time. It was the devil,” he told the Court.
Handing the sentence, the Court recalled that the juvenile offender was arrested in April 2021, and he would be 19 years old this year.
The court noted the juvenile offender had been at the Ministries Police Station for the past three years and two months.
The juvenile offender, spending time in those years at the Police Station was against the Juvenile Act.
According to the Court, per the law, the Juvenile offender has duly served his sentence which is three years but because of the gravity of the offence and the fact that the juvenile wanted to learn a vocation, the court sentenced him to Senior Correctional Home for 12 months.
This is to enable him to learn what he had always dreamed of learning.
The deceased relations were present as the Juvenile was sentenced.
On October 24, 2024, an Accra High Court convicted the juvenile offender on charges of conspiracy and murder.
He was referred to the Juvenile Court for sentencing because the High Court after the trial, was mandated under the law to refer him to a Juvenile Court for sentencing.
His accomplice, Nicolas, who was now 21 years was sentenced by the High Court to life imprisonment.
The prosecution’s case is that the deceased, Ishmael Mensah Abdalla, aged 10, lived with his parents at Coca Cola, near Kasoa.
The 15-year-old convict was a school dropout while the 18-year-old, now 21, was a first year SHS student in a school in Kasoa.
The prosecution said on March 29, 2021, Kini consulted a ritualist for money after watching Lucky Television .
The ritualist demanded GHC 5,000 and a human being.
According to prosecution, Kini decided to use Ishmael Mensah Abdalla for ritual on April 3, 2021.
The Court was told that Kini laid ambush in an uncompleted building while the 15-year-old accomplice lured Ishmael to the building and asked him to pick up a video game in a sack.
As Ishmael bent to pick up the said video game from the sack, the 18-year-old struck him with a pickaxe handle.
The deceased reportedly turned to the 15-year-old and asked for forgiveness from the accused if he had wronged them.
Prosecution held that Kini struck Ishmael again and he became unconscious.
The 15-year-old also hit Ishmael’s head.
Kini took a spade in the said uncompleted building, dug a shallow hole, and buried the victim, to be exhumed for rituals the next day.
Luck, however, eluded them when they were spotted by a witness, the 15-year-old sister who informed their father.
The father of the 15-year-old confronted his son, and he confessed to the crime. The 15-year-old insisted that he committed the act with Kini.
A postmortem conducted by Chief Superintendent Dr Osei Owusu Afriyie, Ishamel had blunt head injury and several head injuries, among others.
GNA