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Crime & Punishment of Sunday, 22 September 2013

Source: daily guide

Yes! I infected 14-yr-old boy with HIV - Pastor Amoah

Pastor Prince Mark Amoah, the ‘man of God’ at the centre of the sodomy and HIV scandal at Tema, has confessed to committing the crime of infecting a 14-year-old boy with HIV.

Pastor Mark alias Marvin Brown, spiritual head of the New Jerusalem Religion in Tema, who allegedly sodomized and infected the 14-year-old boy with HIV, was convicted by the Tema Circuit Court ‘A’ presided over by Ms Lydia Osei Manfo.

He finally pleaded guilty to the two charges preferred against him when he made an appearance in court yesterday.

His sentence has been deferred by the court upon a mitigation application put in by his counsel to financially support the victim with a package for medical care before judgement was pronounced, and he has been remanded into prison custody.

The over-an-hour proceeding, which was heard in chambers, permitted the parties to meet and agree on a reasonable reparation package to cater for the medication of the boy who acquired the deadly disease from the self-styled Man of God.

Pastor Prince Mark, somewhere in November 2012, requested the father of the victim, who was his friend, to allow his 14-year-old son to spend the vacation at his house at Tema Community Four.

The embattled man of God took advantage of the boy’s stay at his house and forcibly had anal sex with, and after the sinful act, spilled his semen into the 14-year-old.

Afterwards, he warned the boy not to disclose what happened to his parents and that he would die if he did.

The boy, perhaps out of fear that something appalling might happen to him, did not disclose his ordeal until he started falling sick after his vacation with Mark.

The sickness of the boy persisted even after his parents had sent him to different hospitals. His parents finally sent him to a medical facility in Tema where after a series of medical tests, the boy was discovered to be infected with HIV.

His parents became alarmed and upon interrogation, he revealed to them how Pastor Mark had sodomised him five times during his stay with him at his house in Tema.

A complaint was immediately lodged at the Tema Regional Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) and the pastor was arrested.

When a test was conducted on Pastor Mark on the order of the court, it turned out that he had HIV.

The 32-year-old pastor was popular in Tema with quite a sizable number of supporters. He was also a regular guest on an Accra-based radio station.