Hajia Mohammed Serena and Latifa Bomaye were sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Tamale High Court for the murder of 90-year-old Akua Denteh in Kafaba in the Savannah Region.
Akua Denteh, 90, was lynched on July 23, 2020, on the basis of witchcraft claims.
Police in Salaga detained seven persons, including Seidu Yahaya, the chairman of the Kafaba village.
Later, in their hiding places, Latifa Bomaye and Hajia Serena Mohammed were apprehended.
The two women, Latifa Bomaye and Hajia Serena Mohammed, were accused of both murder and attempted murder.
For the two charges, the two entered a not guilty plea.
However, the defense attorney for the two accused sent a suggestion to the prosecution in April of this year to amend his clients’ pleas from Not Guilty to Murder to Guilty to Manslaughter.
According to the defendants’ attorney, Abass Klimba Amankwah, the act was manslaughter.
Due to accusations of witchcraft, Akua Denteh was executed at Kafaba in the East Gonja Municipality of the Savannah Region.
A purported soothsayer named Hajia Serena Mohammed and her sidekick Latifa Bomaye were seen torturing her along with 17 other people in a widely circulated video.
Court charges were brought against the seven attackers.
However, five of them—Haruna Aness, 34; Issifa Tanko, 35; Issifa Sachibu, 32; Shaibu Muntala, 29; and Sulemana Ali, 35—were exonerated when the Regional Attorney General’s Department officially advised the police to do so.
