<<Print>>

The leader of a Nima-based prayer group, Pastor Emmanuel Nartey, together with a druggist Quarshie Penastum and a 61-year-old retired ward assistant, has been grabbed by the Nima Police over the death of the pastor�s girlfriend. Felicia Chipie, 28, met her untimely death on Friday May 7, 2011, at the Ridge Hospital in Accra after an illegal abortion that left her bleeding profusely for two days. According to the Nima Divisional Police Commander, ACP Timothy Yoosa Bonga, Pastor Nartey, 36, impregnated Felicia, who is a member of his prayer group and in his quest to shroud the truth and avoid the accompanying shame, he urged her to abort the foetus. Pastor Nartey therefore contacted one Hope Quarshie Penastum, a druggist at Nima in Accra, who prepared some herbal concoction for Felicia to ingest in order to expel the foetus, which never happened. After the abortive attempt to terminate the pregnancy, Penastum introduced Pastor Nartey and his girlfriend to Alex Assuman, a 61-year-old retired ward assistant from the Afia Nkwanta Hospital in Sekondi in the Western Region and currently resident at Oblogo, near Accra. Assuman was alleged to have used surgical implements to forcibly expel the foetus through an illegal D&C operation. The bleeding according to the police, started moments after the illegal act, until the next day may 7, at about 5am when she was rushed to the Ridge Hospital where she died moments after her arrival. The three have since been charged with the offence and remanded into police custody to reappear on June 7, 2011.