The Weekend Chronicle

Father kills son over sugarcane

The paper in an inside page story, reports that Bleamezando, a farming community near Keta in the Volta Region, was on 9th April, this year, thrown into a state of shock, grief and mourning when a ?covetous? father butchered his 24-year-old crippled son over a sugarcane plantation.

The Weekend Chronicle says the father, 65-year-old Gabriel Abordi, allegedly offered a piece of land to his son, Anthony Ahelegbe, a former student of Atiavi Secondary School, for cultivation into which the boy had invested much labour. Quoting Madam Ablavi Dogbatse, an aunt of the deceased, the paper says Abordi became envious of his son?s farm and tried to seize it from him by force.

Arbitration was arranged and the elders and opinion leaders of the town advised the father to exercise patience until his son had harvested the sugarcane.

According to the aunt, the son accepted the suggestions of the elders but his father did not at first but gave in later after much persuasion. The Weekend Chronicle says about 11 p.m. that fateful day, the father took advantage of the silent night and

?nicodemously? sneaked into the farmhouse where the son was distilling ?akpeteshie?. The paper says the father murderously inflicted several cutlass wounds on his son. Anthony?s shouts for help attracted people to the scene, who succeeded in disarming the father.

The Weekend Chronicle quotes reports as saying Anthony, the second of five children, died on April 23, after developing complications. The reports said the Abordi would be put before court on a provisional charge of murder.