THE REPUBLIC V. JAMES ARTHUR

F.G. KORBIEH, J.A.

The appellant herein is the Republic. It has appealed against the judgment of the High Court, Kumasi presided over by K.A.Pobih, J who had acquittd and discharged the respondent from the charge of causing unlawful damage to a partially completed building on plot no. 32, Block F, Ampeyoo. The facts of the case, as presented by the prosecution to the trial court may be summarized as follows: there was a dispute between the complainant, one Joseph Oppong, and the respondent over the ownership of a parcel of land on part of which the respondent had planted some oil palm trees. After the respondent refused to remove his palm trees from the land, the complainant felled twenty of the trees and proceeded to build a six-bedroom house on the land. The building was worth one hundred and fifty million (old) cedis. He later went back to Australia from where he had come. On the 8/9/2002, the complainant returned from Australia to roof the house only to see it had been demolished. …