A private Ghanaian medical practitioner, Dr Fiifi Brakatu, has begun a campaign to collect signatures to petition President John Dramani Mahama to remit the remainder of the jail sentence imposed on Dr Sulley Ali-Gabass, who is serving a 25-year priosn term for defiling a 16-year-old boy.
At 2pm on Wednesday August 24, the campaign to petition the president started on www.change.org, and had garnered 241 signatures.
According to Dr Brakatu, the petitioners “believe his punishment thus far, has served the purpose of not only correcting him, but also deterring others from committing a similar offence”.
He explained that his colleague health professional who was serving time behind bars “is not above the laws of our dear nation and deserves to be treated like any other citizen”.
“His actions deserve total condemnation by any well-meaning citizen. However, we believe that his past contribution to society, particularly by serving diligently as a medical doctor who performed countless bloodless surgeries at the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, Sekondi, significantly helped in reducing the maternal mortality ratio within the Western Region of Ghana,” the medical officer said.
Dr Brakatu held a strong view that the skills of Dr Ali-Gabass as a medical practitioner could be employed to the benefit of the various facilities at the Ghana Prisons Service “which has for years been plagued with a dearth of medical practitioners”.
This, he believed would “certainly inure to the benefit of society”.
“We, therefore, implore the President, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, to activate Article 72 of the 1992 constitution of Ghana and grant Dr Sulley Ali-Gabass a presidential pardon or a remittance of the 25-year sentence imposed on him, on account of his offence. We do pray on the President to grant this petition some consideration for the sake of the remorseful doctor and for the benefit of the good people of Ghana,” Dr Brakatu pleaded.
It will be recalled that Dr Ali-Gabass was jailed in 2015 after an Accra Circuit Court found him guilty of sodomising a 16-year-old high school student after an investigation conducted by Joy FM’s Manasseh Azure Awuni.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
