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General News of Wednesday, 30 July 2003

Source: Chronicle

Ignore Rawlings - Attorney-General

The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Papa Owusu Ankomah, has said the NPP government has no intention to institute any legal action against ex-president Rawlings to compel him to disclose the names of the 15 ministers he claimed masterminded the serial killings of women in the country during his reign.

According to him the government has now realized that the ex-president is only trying to use the serial killings of women as a weapon to cause confusion in the country, but they as a government would not allow themselves to be caught in such a trap.

Speaking in an interview with the Chroncle at Sekondi last Sunday, Papa Owusu Ankomah said the government has serious business to attend to and would not dissipate its energy pursuing "frivolous matters in the law courts."

He said the allegations made by the ex-president during the celebration of the June 4 uprising was criminal and that was why the police went to him to get more information but unfortunately he refused, insisting that he would only speak after the government had mad a lie detector available.

The Attorney-General said the lie detector is only used on suspects but not on informants. "A critical look at what the ex-president has been saying indicates that he himself did not commit the crime. He is rather claiming that he knows the people who committed the crime, meaning that he is an informant but not a suspect."

Papa Ankomah said if that was the case, then the government would not yield to his demand for the provision of a lie detector, which is not even 100 per cent foolproof. He insisted that it was incumbent upon the ex-president to mention the names of the ministers for the police to take up the matter or shut up.

"I have already told you that the man is only trying to cause confusion in the country, and we shall not allow ourselves to be caught in that orchestrated plot," he stressed.