[ 2017-03-31 ]

Justice For All: Man 'freed' after 5 months in jail for possessing 'wee'
A man who had been on remand for five months for
possessing a roll of cannabis popularly called
'weed' has been discharged under the Justice For
all Programme, Friday.

Kwame Esun, 28, was arrested in a town close to
Sekondi on November 17, 2016 in possession of
cannabis and has been on remand since then.

He was arrested in the company of six others all
of whom have been freed.

Officials of the Justice For All Programme who are
reviewing over 30 remand cases in the Sekondi
prisons convicted Esun on his own plea but decided
to discharge him having served five months already
without trial.

Joy News' Seth Kwame Boateng who is following the
activities of the Justice For All programme
reported that Esun was made to sign a bond of good
behavior for a period of 12 months or will be
jailed for two years.

According to Boateng, four other remand prisoners
have also been discharged with one other case
struck out.

Even though the Justice For All Programme began in
September 2007, a Joy News documentary championed
by Seth Kwame Boateng in 2015 brought into sharp
focus the importance of the programme.

The documentary titled Locked and Forgotten,
showed the crude, cruel, and inhumane conditions
under which prisoners, particularly those on
remand endure in prison.

The documentary captured how some innocent victims
were left to rot in prison for as many years
whilst others with misdemeanors were also left to
spend many years than they would have spent if
tried and convicted.

The Justice For All Programme was therefore
reinvigorated to decongest the country's prisons.

Two High Court judges have been shuffling through
the country's prisons to look into cases of remand
prisoners and to bring finality on individual
cases.

At the Sekondi prisons, the judges are looking
into some 30 remand cases and are expected to make
rulings on each one of them before proceeding to
another prison.

Source - Myjoyonline.com

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