Image: Arthur Simpson-Kent sits handcuffed inside the Criminal Investigation Department headquarters in Accra, Ghana, January 10, 2016. REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko
By Kwasi Kpodo
ACCRA (Reuters) – The fugitive partner of slain former EastEnders actress Sian Blake will be extradited to face criminal investigations in the United Kingdom from Ghana, where he was arrested on Saturday, Ghanaian police detectives said on Sunday.
Arthur Simpson-Kent, 48, was arrested in connection with the murder of Blake, an actress who once featured in the popular British soap opera EastEnders, and her two sons Zachary and Amon. The family had been reported missing in mid-December.
The bodies of Blake, 43, and her sons were later discovered in the garden of their London home, Metropolitan police said.
Simpson-Kent was arrested near the town of Butre in the Western region of Ghana with the assistance of local communities and their chiefs, Prosper Agblor, head of the country’s Criminal Investigations Department, told reporters.
The suspect was “smoked from a thicket”, where he was hiding and armed with a knife, Agblor said.
After fleeing London, Simpson-Kent travelled to Glasgow in Scotland before flying to Accra via Amsterdam on Dec. 19.
Although police determined he arrived in Ghana on Dec. 19, he had entered Dec. 7 on his disembarkation form as his date of arrival, Agblor said, although he could not say whether or not the discrepancy in the date was deliberate.
Simpson-Kent was escorted to a police meeting room on Sunday, where he appeared calm, wearing grey jeans and a matching T-shirt that read ‘Wilderness’.
Simpson-Kent spent nearly an hour in the room, where he sat still in his wooden chair, gazing at a line of cameras in front of him. When a journalist asked how he was, he merely nodded.
Graeme Gwyn, detective chief inspector of the British Homicide Command, told Reuters the suspect would not be interrogated while in Ghanaian custody.
“Criminal investigations are going on in the UK but while in Ghana the suspect will not face any questioning whatsoever,” said Gwyn, who led a team of detectives to Ghana.
(Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Makini Brice and Digby Lidstone)
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