FARMER TO DIE...For butchering landlord (MIRROR PAGE 3, JUNE 26, 2010)

From Nana Konadu Agyeman,
Koforidua.   

A 60-year-old farmer, Malaho Agbavitor, who butchered his landlord to death for stealing his farm produce, has been sentenced to death by hanging by a High Court in Koforidua.
The convict, a Togolese national, was unanimously found guilty by a seven-member jury for murdering his landlord, Abubakari Sadick on his farm at Anyinam in the Eastern Region on January 31, 2007. Agbavitor was charged with murder.
A State Attorney, Ms Akpene Motey, who was prosecuting, told the court, presided by Mr Justice G. S. Suurbaareh that the convict “intentionally killed the landlord and run to his village, Ave Dakpa near Akatsi in the Volta Region, until he was arrested on July 7, 2007”.
According to her, the convict on September 2006, hired a parcel of land belonging to the deceased landlord for GH¢80 to cultivate maize.
However, on January, 2007 when the maize matured and was ready for harvesting, the deceased landlord approached the convict to have the farm produce shared between the two but the convict disagreed, resulting in a misunderstanding between them.
The State Attorney said on that fateful day, the landlord went to the farm of the convict but never returned home. He was found dead the following day with machete wounds at the back of his neck.
Ms Motey said the same day,the convict fled to his home town, Ave Dakpa, where he spent six months until he was arrested on January 7, 2007.
According to her, in his caution statement after his arrest, the convict told the police that because he killed his landlord, Sadick, alias Kwasi Taylor, he feared for his life and therefore, decided to flee to his hometown.
That was after he had revealed that somebody had been stealing heaps of maize he had harvested and kept on his farm and therefore, decided to lay ambush on his farm in a bid to find out who had been stealing the maize.
The prosecutor said the convict laid ambush on his farm for three days, before he saw the deceased on his farm filling a sack with maize.
Ms Motey said the convict confronted his landlord and ordered him to carry the bag of maize to the police station but the landlord told “him to get away with his nonsense and made an attempt to move away”.
However, the convict rushed on the deceased with a machete and slashed the back of his neck, after which he fled to his hometown, the prosecution added.
The counsel of the convict prayed the jury to consider the circumstances preceding the killing of the landlord, adding “if after careful assessment you find what he told the court to be true, you should acquit him, but if you consider his evidence to be a concoction, you should convict him of murder, which is the position of the law”.
However,after a recess, the seven-member jury unanimously came up with a guilty verdict after which the court sentenced the convict to death by hanging.