Three AFRC members called for probe – editorial
Police in cover-up
Security man maims worker
Father before tribunal for torturing son
Chief accused of kidnapping
Three AFRC members called for probe – editorial
The Weekly Insight in its editorial says sometime in 1980, Major Boakye Djan, spokesman for the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and one of his colleagues, Major Mensah Poku, called for the establishment of a probe into the three-month rule of the military junta.
The paper says they were joined in 1981 by Captain Baah Achamfuor, also a member of the AFRC, and the only officer who took in the fighting on June 4, 1979. The three soldiers, according to the paper, argued that it was important to establish the facts of AFRC rule to provide an informed basis for both official and unofficial reactions to some aspects of their stewardship.
As far as they were concerned, the findings of the probe would have enabled the Limann administration to right the wrongs of AFRC rule and to move the country on the path to national reconciliation. The Weekly Insight says the call was made against the background of rumours about members and associates of the AFRC and it was therefore widely seen as a move to clear the air once and for all.
The paper says the Chairman of the AFRC, who stood to benefit most from the call, surprisingly, opposed the setting up of the probe and preferred to be taken to a fetish. According to the Weekly Insight, the objections to the call by Flt-Lt Jerry Rawlings, then Chairman of the AFRC, have not helped him, his colleagues in the military junta and Ghana.
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Police in cover-up
In a front page lead headline story, the Ghanaian Chronicle says its investigations have revealed a cover-up by the Greater Accra Regional Police Command to prevent the arrest and prosecution of seven soldiers hired by some chiefs of Gbawe in Accra, for a ‘hatchet job’ in their chieftaincy dispute with Oblogo, also in Accra, on April 9, this year.
The paper quotes the Odorkor Police source as saying that though the soldiers disappeared before the arrival of the police, the Regional Police Commander, Mr Cephas Agbeli, ordered that a woman arrested for her involvement in the dispute, should be released.
The Chronicle says its efforts to get the Regional Police boss to speak on the matter, proved futile. According to the paper, some of the soldiers who were involved in the operation, later apologised to some elders of Oblogo after realising that they had been given wrong information to "settle someone’s personal score".
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Security man maims worker
The Dispatch in a centre-spread story reports that a security man at AFKO Fisheries at Tema, damaged the left eye of 30-year-old Joseph Awotwi Amoah, a fish discharger of the same company, when he hit allegedly hit the eye with an object, over a piece of tuna fish.
Amoah is said to be partially blind and has been abandoned by his employers. According to Amoah, last May, after discharging fish at the Tema main harbour, he picked a piece of tuna and went to plead with the security man to allow him to take it home for a meal.
Before he could say anything the security man, whose name is given simply as Kennedy, slapped him in the face with an object, drawing blood from his left eye.
He said Kennedy, realising what he had done, offered him 2,000 cedis to attend the hospital. He said that the management gave him only 30,000 cedis for treatment at the hospital, and that he has not fully recovered from the injury, his employers have abandoned him.
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Father before tribunal for torturing son
The Daily Graphic reports that a 60-year-old man, who tied the hands of his eight-year-old son and subjected him to severe beating until the boy bled profusely from the mouth and nostrils, has been arraigned at an Accra Community Tribunal.
The Graphic in an inside page story says the accused, Atsu Yibor, allegedly subjected his son Paul Agbeko, to the inhuman treatment when the boy told him that he had lost the 100 cedis given to him as pocket money for school.
The paper says the court presided by Mr Kwadwo Owusu, convicted Atsu on his own plea guilt, but deferred sentence to July 23.
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Chief accused of kidnapping
In a front page splash, the Ghanaian Times reports that Nana Asaman Kwao II, 53, chief of Oyoko Breman in Ashanti, who photocopied a bench warrant ostensibly to arrest a farmer but rather kidnapped him in connection with a land dispute, was on Monday arraigned before a Sunyani High Court.
The paper says with him in the dock were five accomplices, including his linguist.
The five who allegedly posed as soldiers from the Sunyani Military Barracks on a special assignment from the Castle, were said to have kidnapped the farmer, Oscar Ofori-Atta of Adugyama also in Ashanti.
The chief, the paper says, is facing a charge of aiding and abetting kidnapping. He pleaded not guilty and was granted 2 million cedis bail with a surety until August 2.
The five accomplices, who all pleaded not guilty to forging military identity cards, possessing an offensive weapon, assault, threat, posing as public officers and attempted kidnapping, were each granted 4 million cedis bail with one surety, says the Times. They are also to re-appear on August 2.
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