Court remands man for insulting Akufo-Addo

An Accra Circuit Court has remanded into police custody a 40-year-old tile setter for insulting President Nana Akuffo-Addo.

Raphael Okoe Ankrah, also known as Okoe Killer was arrested after police saw a video posted to social showing the accused using very unsavoury words on the President.

He has since pleaded not guilty to offensive conduct conducive to breaches of the peace.

The Court presided over by Mr Samuel Bright Acquah, ordered that Ankrah be brought back on May 30, 2023.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Maxwell Oppong told the Court that Ankrah lived in Jamestown.

He said on May 15, 2023, the Police saw a viral video in which the Ankrah was seen insulting the President.

ASP Oppong said the police had to arrest Ankrah because the video was not only vile but had annoyed and agitated the public.

The Police’s Intelligence Directorate tracked Ankrah and arrested him at his hideout at James Town in Accra.

The prosecution said Ankrah admitted the offence in his investigation cautioned statement and was accordingly charged.

Mr Yaw Dankwa, Ankrah’s Defense Counsel who prayed for bail for the accused, said the charge did not support the facts, which he said was political, because his client denied the offence upon his arrest.

He suggested that the said video could have been manipulated and until it was presented and scrutinised in court, his client was innocent of the charges.

Mr Dankwa said Ankrah, a “responsible father” with a wife who had a two-week baby, was not a flight risk. 

He said Ankrah had “people of substance” ready to stand surety for him.

The prosecution, opposing the bail, pleaded with the Court to send the accused to the psychiatric hospital as he told police he was not in his right frame of mind.

ASP Oppong said that based on Ankrah’s utterances in the video, he would be safer in police custody because his life was in danger in his community.

On him not being a flight risk, the prosecution said Ankrah was a squatter living in an uncompleted building with no fixed place of abode, but his lawyer said there were no uncompleted buildings in James Town.

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