Man held on gay charge in Ghana

A gay tourist has been charged with sexual offences after flying to Ghana to see a partner he met via the internet.

Photographer John Ross Macleod, aged 63, was arrested on Saturday at Ghana’s airport after police who were searching him for drugs turned up a compact disc with pictures of him having sex with the other man, said a police spokesman.

Homosexual acts are illegal in the West African country, although prosecutions are not common.

Macleod and the Ghanaian man in the pictures, 19-year-old Emmanuel Adda, pleaded guilty yesterday to “unnatural carnal knowledge.”

Macleod pleaded not guilty to a separate charge with possessing obscene pictures, police said.

Macleod met Adda through the internet and they exchanged e-mails before the photographer arrived in Ghana in early October to visit .

“During his stay in Ghana, Adda travelled round the country with Macleod, who took the opportunity to sodomise him and took pictures as well,” the spokesman said.

Court officials said this was the first such case in Ghana’s courts this year.

Homosexuality is illegal in many African countries, including Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria, Uganda, Mauritania and Sudan.

South Africa prompted continent-wide controversy last year when it became the first African country to legalise gay marriage.