Police arrest 28-yr-old for chopping up his brother over Memory Card

By Patrick N. Mensah, Maryland County

Police in Maryland County have arrested and incarcerated a 28-year-old man identified as Daniel Saydee, Jr. for allegedly chopping his elder brother over a memory card argument.

Lawson Barfeh, 38, was reportedly chopped multiple times on his back and right hand by his junior brother in Gessanken, Barrobo Statutory District, Maryland County on March 2, 2023, at about 7:00 a.m.

According to reports, their conflict was triggered by the perpetrator’s alleged refusal to turn over the victim’s memory card he had earlier borrowed.

Following request for the card on several occasions, Daniel Saydee later told him that the card got missing, a situation that resulted in conflict.

Daniel Saydee, according to police records is currently under detention at the Glofaken Depot in Barrobo, pending investigation while victim Lawson Barfeh has been admitted at a local clinic for treatment.

Residents in the town have expressed regrets over the situation, noting that their lives are at risk due to the lack of more police officers in that statutory district.

They disclosed that over time, the district has had just two to three assigned police officers and several community watch forums who they claimed had not been trained properly.

The citizens in Barrobo Statutory District used this medium to call on the Ministry of Justice to assign more police officers and reconditioned the only prison center in Maryland County.

On Monday, February 8, 2023, during the opening of the fourth Judicial Circuit Court  Resident Judge, Nelson T.Tokpa said the absence of a prison facility in the county remains a major challenge to the operation of the court.

Judge Tokpa in his charge said the issue of prison facilities is beyond the court and the judiciary Branch of Government as it is the responsibility of the Executive and the Justice Ministry to maintain, construct and renovate prison facilities across the country.

The fourth Judicial Circuit Court Judge noted that there is no doubt that a result of the violent strike by angry citizens and residents taking to the streets of Harper in March 2021 that led to vandalizing prison facilities in the county resulting in the forced release of 91 imamates, 60 convicts and 31 pretrial detainees was against the law.

“Upon the destruction and vandalizing of the prison facility, several appeals were made by the court to the national government, and international organizations to renovate the facility and to provide a vehicle as a medium of transporting convicts and pretrial detainees to nearby counties for imprisonment, but all of these appeals yielded no results up to present”, Judge Tokpa said.

Meanwhile, Judge Tokpa further disclosed that the jurisprudence of the court jurisdiction is paralyzed, compromised and it continues to dispense justice under difficult conditions and struggles to conduct criminal trials due to the lack of prison facilities and vehicles to transport convicts and pretrial detainees or else defendant is allowed to file in a valid criminal bond.

The absence of the prison facility has greatly impeded the function of the court throughout the county thereby increasing the crime rate.

In recent times, the former Senator of Maryland County H. Dan Morias started the reconditioning of the only prison facility in the County but it’s yet to be completed and turned over for use.