Eight more persons, including a nursing mother and a pregnant woman, are in police custody over the murder of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama at Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central Region.

They are Akwasi Baah, Solomon Sackey, Kwame Agyei, Joseph Appiah Kubi aka Kum Dede, Akosua Takyiwaa aka Maabono, Esther Dauda aka Asha, Michael Kumah aka Kojo Anim and Akwasi Asante.

The prosecutor, DSP George Amegah said that the accused persons on Monday, May 29, 2017, at Denkyira-Obuasi, murdered then Capt. Mahama, who was buried yesterday.

Before trial magistrate Ebenezer Kweku Ansah, the pleas of the accused persons were not taken.

DSP George Amegah urged the court to remand them into police custody to aid the police in their investigations.

He said there were some key suspects in the case the police were looking for.

The judge asked the police to bring positive results on June 21, indicating that the human rights of the accused persons must not be trampled upon.

Presenting the facts of the case, DSP Amegah said Major Maxwell Adam Mahama was the commander of a military detachment stationed at Diaso in the Upper Denkyira West District of the Central Region to check the activities of galamseyers (illegal miners).

He said the detachment is based at the outskirt of Diaso.

On Monday, May 29, 2017, at about 8:00 am, the soldier left the detachment base for a 20-kilometer jogging.

DSP Amegah indicated that at about 9:25 am, the commander got to the outskirts of Denkyira-Obuasi, where a number of women were selling food items by the roadside.

Major Mahama, the prosecutor told the court, stopped to interact with the women and even bought some snails, which he left with them (women) so that he could pick them (snails) on his return from the jogging.

When he was taking the money from his pocket to pay for the snails, the woman from whom he bought the snails and a few others saw his sidearm tucked on his waist and soon after he had left, one of the women telephoned the assemblyman of the area (William Baah) to report what she had seen.

Without verifying the information, William Baah, who is also in police custody, mobilized the town folks to attack a suspected armed robber, who had been sighted by the traders selling on the outskirt of the town.

The prosecutor said the suspects met the army officer near the Denkyira-Obuasi cemetery, and without giving him the opportunity to identify himself, attacked him with weapons such as clubs, concrete blocks, pieces of stick and machetes, killed him and burnt part of his body.