The Juvenile Court in Accra has sentenced a 15-year-old boy to 12 months at the Senior Correctional Centre for conspiring with another teenager to murder a 10-year-old boy in Kasoa for money rituals.
Before sentencing, the emotional convict pleaded for forgiveness, stating:
“It was not my intention to kill my dear friend or end his life this way. I pray the court forgives my sins and gives me a second chance.”
He also appealed to the deceased’s father, saying, “Ishmael (the deceased) and I played together for a long time. I never planned to kill him—it was the devil.”
Presiding Judge Bernice Mensimah Ackon noted the juvenile, arrested in April 2021, is now 19 years old and had been on remand for three years and two months. Under the Juvenile Justice Act 2003 (Act 653), this period accounted for his three-year sentence.
However, given the severity of the crime and the convict’s desire to learn a technical vocation after dropping out of school in Basic 6, the court added a 12-month correctional sentence to help him acquire vocational skills.
