Murder suspect Daniel Asiedu claims he was coerced into admitting guilt and signing a cautioned statement by the former head of the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) of the Ghana Police Service.
Asiedu is accused of killing Joseph Boakye Danquah Adu, the MP for Abuakwa North.
Asiedu also stated to the court that when the former head of CID, Maame Yaa Tiwah Addo Danquah, was threatening him to accept whatever the CID Investigators presented before him, she subsequently brought him Papaye when he was at the cells to calm him down.
The trial is taking place before Justice Lydia Osei Marfo of the Criminal Division of the Accra High Court, where the accused has entered a not-guilty plea to the allegation of murder.
He has objected to the investigator’s plans to offer cautioned and charged statements he acquired from the police as evidence in the ongoing trial through a team of attorneys led by Lawyer Yaw Dankwah.
The defense claims that the police threatened, pressured, and forced their client into making statements that he did not make voluntarily.
The court, acting within the law, has put the substantive jury trial on hold and is conducting a mini-trial to uncover the facts in light of the charges brought by the accused and his attorneys.
During the inquiry, the prosecution led by Mrs. Sefakor Batse took cautioned and charged statements from the accused, and these statements were presented as evidence by independent witnesses.
On Tuesday, Asiedu opened his case in the mini-trial by claiming that the former CID boss threatened his life unless he admitted the statements by signing and thumb-printing whatever documents were put before him by the CID.
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