Crime & Punishment of Saturday, 18 July 2015

Source: Daily Guide

Court to announce Obinim judgment

Bishop Daniel Obinim, founder of Godsway International Ministry Bishop Daniel Obinim, founder of Godsway International Ministry

The High Court hearing the case involving Bishop Daniel Obinim, the founder of Godsway International Ministry, who allegedly assaulted a radio panelist at Hot FM, an Accra-based radio station, is set to announce a date for judgment on July 23, 2015.

This was after counsel for the bishop told the court, presided over Justice Abdulai that they were in the process of filing their address.

The state attorney in the case, Joyce Buerko Debrah was not in court due to the strike action embarked on by state attorneys in the country.

However, she is believed to have filed her address.

The trial judge had earlier ordered the state to file their address by May 22, 2015.

He also directed Obinim to file his address within two weeks after the state.

The accused told the court that he compensated the panelists of Hot FM, an Accra-based radio station who were at the studio when he and his boys stormed there in 2011.

The bishop said his church elders informed him that the panelists had asked for compensation.

Obinim said this under cross-examination by Mrs. Joyce Buerko Debrah.

He explained Kwame Katakyie, the host, Shadrack Adu, a certain Amoaku told his elders that they could decide the outcome of the case so he should compensate them.

He said he consequently compensated them through his church elders, but did not disclose the amount involved to the court.

The bishop in his evidence in chief stated that he went to the station to clarify issues on the allegations of marital infidelity which was being discussed there, but was rather assaulted and pushed out of the station.

The pastor said he never saw any crowbar at the station and did not have any physical contact with Kwame Ntim, the panelist who alleged that he (Obinim) had harmed him.