Adjei-Boadi lied

Ex-Corporal Alhassan Adama Akati on Tuesday described as untrue evidence by Ex-Warrant Officer Joseph Kwabena Adjei Boadi, former member of the erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council, that he (Adjei Boadi) personally did not shoot, but ordered the shooting of six people at the Border Guards Headquarters after the abortive coup of corporal Halidu Giwa in 1983.

Ex-Corporal Akati said he saw Adjei Boadi who was then wearing a helmet, gun them down himself. He said five of them had been with him in the guardroom and Adjei-Boadi had ordered them out.

Ex-Corporal Akati, a member of the guard-team of the late President Hilla Limann, told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) that it was also untrue that Adjei-Boadi and his men fought and overpowered Giwa's team, which staged the abortive coup, at Broadcasting House.

He said at the time of the arrival of Adjei Boadi at the Broadcasting House, none of Giwa's men were there, and the coup would have succeed if Lt. Col Ekow Dennis had made the radio announcement instead of the premature one of Giwa.

The coup would have succeeded if they had located Lt. Col. Dennis or any senior officer had given them their support when the PNDC countered their announcement. Ex-Corporal Akati said he had hated the revolution of the PNDC right from its inception in December 1981, and had been part of the government troops that resisted Flt. L.t Jerry John Rawlings, the Chairman of the PNDC, on the eve of the coup on 31 December 1981, but added that the government troops overpowered them.

Ex-Corporal Akati said he went on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon and on his return he was picked on 15 June 1982 by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) on allegation that a boxed car engine he brought from Lebanon for Lt. Col Dennis was rather a bomb package.

Ex-Corporal Akati said he was sent to the BNI Headquarters, cautioned and sent to the Usher Fort Prison and was "chained like a monkey for three days". One of his hands was freed when he would have a meal or attended nature's call at the same place.

While in detention at the Usher Fort, his colleagues organised and he came out of jail, staged a coup to oust the PNDC, but their coup was foiled because of the premature radio announcement by Giwa.

He was arrested and sent to the Castle and was interrogated by one Lt Kusi on his role in the abortive coup, but he insisted that he had always been against the 31 December 1981 Revolution.

"Lt. Kusi made a sign at my back and soldiers numbering about 15 began beating my ribs," Ex-Corporal Akati said, and added that later security personnel took him to the end of the Castle, where he was subjected to another round of severe beating after Flt Lt Kojo Lee had also interrogated him.

Ex-Corporal Akati said after the beatings he was brought back to the Castle Guardroom, from where he said detainees were picked and fired. He said when it got to his turn and he was being taken out to be executed, he overpowered the soldier taking him along and took possession of his weapon.

Captain Kojo Tsikata, who he said was upstairs with Chairman Rawlings, walked down and asked him to surrender the weapon, assuring him of security and he obliged. He was sent back to a special guardroom, with instructions to be given neither food nor water for two weeks, but one of the guards surreptitiously took him to the toilet and gave him some food.

Peter Nanfuri, then BNI Director saw him one day at the Castle very weak and he promised to help him. He was transferred to the BNI and later arrainged before a tribunal, and later he spent nine and half years in detention.