Crime & Punishment of Thursday, 13 August 2015

Source: Daily Guide

Missing autopsy report pops up

Pastor Eric Adusah and his late wife Pastor Eric Adusah and his late wife

The prosecution in the trial of the United Kingdom-based Ghanaian pastor, Eric Isaiah Adusah, has said that the autopsy report on the late Charmaine Speirs, 41, had been found.

This follows several weeks of allegation that the report, authored by Dr. Afua Abrahams, a pathologist who was in Cuba for a programme, could not be found at the morgue of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

Detective Sergeant Divine K. Tormuh had then told the court that the police were still making “strenuous efforts” to locate where the report, which was given to one Denkyi, the morgue manager, was filed.

He was emphatic that although the report had been written, where to locate it was a problem.

However, when the case was due for hearing in a court presided over by Ms Mavis Kwanainoe yesterday, Detective Inspector Isaac Agbemehia prosecuting, said the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital had assured the prosecution that the report was ready.

He said the particular pathologist who conducted the autopsy on the late pastor’s wife was also back in Ghana (from the Cuba programme).

Afua Acheampomaa Duah, lawyer for Pastor Adusah, said the prosecution had been telling the court that the report would be ready for the past one month.

She said she would rather ask for a long adjournment to enable the parties get the necessary documents to prepare for the trial because her client was resident in UK and has to fly back to Ghana every hearing date.

The lawyer of Isaiah Adusah, pastor of Global Light Revival Ministries, stated that the assurance from the prosecution was not the best and accordingly suggested that the case be adjourned until October 28, 2015, a request the trial magistrate granted.

Interim Report

Dr. Abrahams in an interim autopsy report on Ms. Speirs dated March 31, 2015 stated that the pastor’s wife died of “acute poising and opiate heroin” overdose, a banned necrotic substance.

Pastor Adusah had at the last sitting wanted the court to release the body of his wife to him for burial in England due to pressure from the bereaved family.

He is being tried over the death of Ms. Speirs – who was carrying a three-month-old pregnancy – between 18 and 20 March, 2015, at Mac Dic Royal Plaza Hotel in Koforidua, Eastern Regional capital.

Pastor Adusah is currently on a GHc200,000 bail he secured at an Accra Human Rights court.