BIBIANI: Court remands fetish priest for child stealing

Handcuff

A twenty-five-year-old fetish priest who allegedly tricked a couple at Sefwi-Apentemadi near Juaboso and stole their baby girl was on Thursday remanded into prison custody by the Bibiani Circuit Court.
     
Ama Bennie faces an additional charge of practicing medicine without authority in contravention of the Pharmacy and Drug Act of 1961.
     
Standing trial with the priest for abetment of crime is Ama Ataa, his mother.
     
They both denied the charges and would re-appear on July 29, 2011.
     
Police Detective Chief Inspector Alex Asamoah told the court presided over by Justice Emmanuel Ankamah that Bennie was a male but claimed to have been transformed into a female by his fetish.
     
He had been holding and carrying himself as a woman and even took on a female name.
     
The complainant, Ama Agyeiwaa, a petty trader and mother of two, lived with her husband, Kwame Elluo, at Sefwi-Boinzan near Juaboso, the prosecution stated.
     
Sometime in June 2010, Bennie approached the Agyeiwaa, then carrying a seven-month pregnancy and told her that the unborn baby was not a human being.
     
He, however, promised that he would use his magical powers to assist her with spiritual protection.
     
The prosecution said when Agyeiwaa was about to give birth, Bennie invited the couple to his shrine at Apentemadi.
     
The woman went into labour on August 16, 2010 at about 2300 hours, and the priest was on hand to aid her to deliver the so-called mysterious creature in a bush about 70 metres away from the shrine. He would not allow the couple to catch a glimpse of the baby.       
     
He told them that Agyeiwaa had delivered a python and that he was going to perform some rituals to send the reptile into a nearby stream.
     
Some days later, the priest proclaimed to people in the area that he had delivered a baby girl.
     
Detective Chief Inspector Asamoah said when the couple heard the news it dawned on them that they had been tricked by the fetish priest.
     
They therefore went to him, seized their baby from the priest’s mother who was nursing it and made a formal report to the police.
     
During police interrogation Bennie confessed having hidden the baby in the bush and going for it after the parents had been deceived into believing his fairy tale.

GNA