Entertainment of Saturday, 3 April 2004

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Okalla Is Free

Samuel Kwadwo Buabeng, a popular comedian also known as Bishop Bob Okalla was yesterday acquitted and discharged by a Sunyani Circuit Court in the case in which he was charged for defiling a 15 year old girl at Nkoranza.

Before acquitting and discharging the accused, the presiding judge Mr G.H.K Debrah quoted part of the Ghana Legal Law to buttress his decision and said the prosecution failed to prove its case in the charged preferred against Okalla.

Mr Debrah said the prosecution was so technical in its investigation instead of the law.For instance, references by the court regarding indecent assault purported to have been meted on the girl by the accused, the girl?s date of birth as quoted by the prosecution and statements made by some of the six prosecution witnesses lacked the essential ingredients to convince the court.

The prosecution had told the court when Okalla first appeared before it on September 23, last year, that he had defiled the victim at Nkoranza in Brong Ahafo Region where he and other members of a concert party had gone to perform.

Okalla was said to have lured the girl to a hotel where he forcibly had sex with her and later abandoned her for Accra.The girl did not make any complain to her parents until three months later when the parents reported the incidence to the police at Nkoranza.The case was later transferred to WAJU in Sunyani and Okalla was traced to Accra and arrested.