The 22-year-old mason who allegedly strangled a seven-year-old girl to death and had sex with her, says he’s conscious and does not need any medical examination to determine his state of mind.

Lucas Agboyie said in court, “My Lord, everything is alright. I am conscious. I don’t want any test to be conducted on my mind.”

According to him, since the incident occurred he had been stable in the mind.

When the court, presided over by Mr Worlanyo Kotoku, asked him whether he knew the mother of the deceased and Agboyie said he did not know her.

According to him, members of the bereaved family should forgive him for the pain he had caused them.

The case was adjourned to December 20, following a strike action embarked upon by State Attorneys in the country.

State Attorneys for the past few weeks have been on strike over poor conditions of service.

The state was to begin committal proceedings to enable Lucas Agboyie to stand trial at the high court.

At the last sitting, Francisca Tete-Mensah, Principal State Attorney, prayed for a date to enable the police to deliver by hand a copy of the docket to the Attorney General’s (AG’s) office.

This, she said, would enable them to put together the bill of indictment, summary of evidence and list of exhibits.

Mrs Tete-Mensah recounted that the case docket had not been sent to the AG’s office because the investigator was sent on another national assignment in the Northern Region.

The Principal State Attorney said on his arrival, the investigator had promised to deliver the docket by hand instead of through a dispatch rider.

The murder of the victim took place at Kubekro No 1, near Atadeka in the Ashaiman municipality of the Greater Accra Region.

The prosecution said the deceased, Ruth Ankomah, was a Class 1 pupil of Meshach Academy School at Zenu, Ashaiman.

The accused person lives 200 meters away from the deceased’s house. On April 19, last year, at about 0800 hours, the deceased’s mother prepared porridge and gave her daughter (Ruth) GH¢20.00 to go and purchase bread at a nearby shop for breakfast.

The prosecution said having waited for a long time without Ruth’s return the mother became alarmed and started searching for her in the area, but to no avail.

Later, an informant told the victim’s mother that he saw the accused person pulling her into his metal container. A search team marched to the container, but the accused was nowhere to be found.

However, they found the naked body of the victim lying in a supine position on an old student mattress with blood oozing from her nostrils and mouth.

The search team nabbed Agboyie during the search, and he confessed to killing the girl and had sex with her.