Court fines farmer for stealing cocoa beans

The Enchi District Magistrate court on Monday fined Kwame Abass, a twenty-one-year-old farmer for stealing dried cocoa beans at Aquai-Allah near Enchi in the Aowin Municipality.

He pleaded guilty to the charge of stealing and the court presided over by Mr Eric Baah Boateng convicted him on his own plea.

Abass was fined GHC 600 Ghana cedis and was ordered by the court to sign a bond to be of good behavior for 12 months or in default serve 9 months imprisonment in hard labour.

Detective Sergeant Joseph Kwadwo Agyare, told the court that, the complainant, one James Peprah, a farmer, lives at Aquai-Allah, a farming community.

He said Abass resides in the same area with the complainant who owns a cocoa farm at the outskirt of Aquai-Allah and has mandated his son Ebenezer Preprah, a friend of the convict to take care of the farm on his behalf.

The prosecution said on September 13, this year, Abass accompanied Ebenezer to the said cocoa farm and assisted him to work on some cocoa pods which he had harvested after which they heaped the beans in the farm for it to ferment.

He said three days later Ebenezer visited the farm and detected that about 30 kilogrammes of the fermented cocoa beans valued at 247.00 Ghana cedis has vanished.

Detective Agyare said Ebenezer went home and informed the complainant who also rushed to the local information center in the village and made an announcement of the theft.

The Prosecution said on September 17 this year, the complainant had information that Abass was the one who stole the cocoa beans and he informed the community’s neighborhood watch committee and he was apprehended.

He said Abass admitted the crime and confessed that on September 16 about 1500 hours, he sneaked into the cocoa farm and stole part of the fermented cocoa beans into a fertilizer sack and carried it to a friend’s house to enable him to dry it.

The prosecution said Abass then led the team to where he was drying the said cocoa beans and same was retrieved.