Goat thief flees from Akyem Swedru

Stephen Ohene Agyekum, the goat thief whose unusual sentence by a circuit court judge to carry the stolen animal and walk the streets of Akyem Swedru in the Eastern Region, has fled the town after carrying out the bizarre punishment.

A bench warrant has been issued for the arrest of his alleged accomplice, Kwasi Bade, who had earlier vanished into thin air.

The townsfolk lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the goat thief as he carried the pregnant animal and walked along with an inscription on paper and pasted prominently on him which read, “I am a goat thief,” as ordered by the judge.

Stephen Ohene Agyekum, a 30-year-old ex-convict and native of Juaben in the Ashanti Region, spent over an hour serving his sentence during which he was booed and derogatory remarks made about him by people who relished the spectacle.

He had earlier pleaded with the trial judge to tamper justice with mercy, assuring that he would not commit such an offence again.

Justice Emmanuel Brew, the Akyem-Swedru circuit court judge, after studying the three charges slapped against Agyekum, invited the media to witness the punishment he was going to slap on him.

The ex-convict was also ordered to sign a 24-month bond to be of good behaviour, failing which he would serve a two-month prison term.

The prosecutor, Detective Chief Inspector R. K. Sabbah, told the court that Stephen Agyekum, unemployed and Kwasi Bade, a native of Akyem Swedru, met at the Nsawam Prisons and became friends. Both were released six months ago.

According to the prosecutor, the ex-convicts conspired and stole a three-month pregnant goat on 20 August, 2015 belonging to one Madam Vida Yeboah and sold it to one Madam Veronica Adwoa Opare, a rice seller, for GHc 65.

Detective Chief Inspector Sabbah said Mame Adwoa Opare then tied the goat in a pen and went to the road side to sell food. Upon her return to pick a bowl for a customer, she spotted the two ex-convicts in her house. Agyekum had broken into the pen to untie the pregnant goat, while Bade was attempting to burgle her room.

The frightened woman, the prosecutor stated, raised an alarm and attracted neighbours who came to arrest Stephen Agyekum but his accomplice fled.

He admitted conspiring with his accomplice to commit the crime.