Court Demands Ages of Bantama Gang Rapists

THE KUMASI Gender Court has tasked the prosecution team to get the real ages of the five suspects in a gang-rape case at Bantama in the Ashanti region.   

Presided over by Her Worship, Comfort K. Tasiame, the court, on Wednesday, ordered for the suspects to be kept in juvenile cells.

The Kumasi Gender Court did not hear the case as the judge wants to be sure that the suspects were old enough to be tried by her court.

The case has therefore been adjourned to Wednesday, February 7, this year, by which time the exact ages of the suspects would have been confirmed.

The gang-rape case, which attracted wide media attention, was originally before the Asokwa Juvenile Court, presided over by His Worship, Peter Oppong Boahen.

This was because the suspects were believed to be minors. But the Junenile court struck out the case after the prosecution team said one of the suspects was 20 years old therefore he is not fit to stand trial in a juvenile court.

The matter was therefore referred to the Kumasi Gender Court but the judge also wants to be sure that the suspects are old enough to be tried by her court.

The presiding judge was hopeful that the real ages of the suspects would have been figured out by the prosecution team when they appear in court again.

The five suspects are believed to be Senior High School (SHS) and Junior High School (JHS) students, who reside at Bantama in Kumasi.

They reportedly gang-raped a teenage girl in turns and recorded the act on their mobile phone, which had since leaked and gone viral on social media platforms.

By: Afia Sarpong Amankwa/ thePublisher