Assin Foso (C/R), Dec. 15, GNA - Joseph Danso, a farmer at Assin Foso, who allegedly poisoned cooked food his wife had sold to the public, to teach her a lesson for leaving her matrimonial home, was last Thursday arraigned before a magistrate's court at Foso, for attempted murder.

About 78 persons, most of them pupils of the local Seventh Day Adventist (S.D.A) and Anglican primary and junior secondary schools, were said to have suffered from various illnesses believed to have resulted from eating the alleged poisoned food.

The police were making arrangements to send a sample of the food to the Ghana Standard Board for examination, while it was also in touch with the authorities of the local Catholic Hospital for a report on the alleged victims who were sent there for treatment, the court was told. Danso's plea, was not taken and he had been granted 10 million cedis bail with two sureties to be justified, until Friday, January 9, 2004.

Police Chief Inspector Edward Kwaku Owusu, told the court presided over by Dr Kwame Owusu, that Danso and his wife Lawrentia Antwi, had marital problems and she therefore packed out of their home to live with her mother.

He said thereafter, Danso allegedly warned his wife that he would "teach her a bitter lesson" and had sternly warned their nine-year-old son not to eat some of the food his mother had cooked for sale.

The prosecutor alleged that Danso might have sneaked into his mother in-law's kitchen where his wife had prepared the food for sale overnight and poisoned the food, hence his stern warning to his son not to eat it.