Hearts Fans Jailed

Four supporters of Accra Hearts of Oak Sporting Club have been jailed 18 months each for assaulting a police officer and a student after last Sunday’s match between Hearts and Asante Kotoko. Three of the convicts – Robert Shadow, a wood carver; Armah Isaac and Ibrahim Ali, both porters pleaded guilty to conspiracy, assault and unlawfully causing damage to a police light armour car.

The fourth, Ibrahim Amadu, a gardener was also convicted for carrying offensive weapons to a public place with the intent of causing harm or injury.

The court convicted them on their own plea. Pronouncing judgement, the presiding judge, Mrs Ivy Heward Mills expressed the hope that this maiden prosecution of offending supporters of football clubs would deter others from such behaviour in the country.

She appealed to spectators to view football as a game and avoid violence since the cost to the nation was very huge.

The court was told that after the match last Sunday, the three men and others, now at large, attacked and beat up anybody who wore a red dress because they perceived such people as Kotoko supporters. A team of police men in the Light Armoured vehicle, arrived at the scene and tried to cool the tension. But the convicts became offended with the police action and hurled stones at them.