Navy Officers Strike: Torture fisherman, 9 residents in Dzemeni

The 28-year-old fisherman, Kwasi Gadri, accused of insulting navy officers in Torgor Dzemeni, a fishing community in the South Danyi District of the Volta Region, has been beaten to pulp by four navy officers,Today can report.

The victim, who is a native of Bakpa in the Central North Tongu District of the Volta Region, is currently at the Ho General Hospital, receiving treatment.

Confirming this to the media at a press conference at the weekend in Dzemeni, spokesperson for the chiefs and opinion leaders in the area, Mr. John Abotsi, disclosed that prior to the victim’s ordeal suffered at the hands of the Navy officers, a gun was first pointed at his head in an attempt to put fear in him to admit his guilt.

The incident, according to the chiefs and opinion leaders, happened at the Torgor Dzemeni Boats Landing Beach on Friday, May 13, 2016.

Kwasi Gadri, the victim

They revealed that the victim was beaten till he fell unconscious.

And even in that unconscious state, the four navy officers (who committed the act) showed no mercy on Kwasi Gadri, Mr. Abosti added.

Relating the ordeal of Kwasi Gadri to what recently happened in Tamale in the Northern Region, where two soldiers brutalised a 16-year-old boy for allegedly stealing a Techno mobile phone of one of the soldiers, the chiefs said the action by the navy officers was totally “unfortunate, condemnable and uncalled for.”

According to them, as those two military officers were made to face the law, so should the navy officers face same.

The marauding navy officers whose names were not mentioned, the opinion leaders told Today, physically assaulted Kwasi Gadri, for making a comment the officers considered denigrating.

Although the officers were not around when the fisherman allegedly made that comment, the chiefs said one Frankie who works with the navy reported to the officers.

That, they stated, infuriated the navy officers, for which reason, they subjected Kwasi Gadri to stern beatings, leaving him with cuts all over his body and forehead.

The wanton brutalities by the navy, according to the chiefs, have been going on in the area for some time now.

The aggrieved youth displayed placards amidst singing of war songs during the press conference

They noted that the latest one brings to a total of ten (10) people who in recent times had suffered one kind of brutality or the other at the hands of the navy for no apparent reason.

They claimed that for the past six years that the navy started operating in the area, they have been physically abusive.

Persons including chiefs who have fallen victims to navy brutalities, the chiefs mentioned, include Wisdom Deblu, Simon Akpatsu, Togbe Gaho, Togbe Iddrisu Dablu, Togbe Sempe and his wife, Tenu Kofi, and Charles Meney.

They revealed that the action of the navy has since been reported to the Kpalime-Duga Police Station in Torgor Dzemeni but nothing has come out of that.

That worrying situation, the chiefs said, has created tension between the people of the area and the navy.

As a result of that, the chiefs and opinion leaders on Thursday, May 19, 2016, sent a petition to President John Dramani Mahama, appealing to him too, as a matter of urgency, remove the navy officers from the area or they would advise themselves.

The three-page petition, which was signed by the chiefs, queen mothers, elders and opinion leaders of Torgor Dzemeni, was submitted through the District Chief Executive (DCE) for South Danyi District Assembly, Mr. Kafui Bokoe, to President Mahama.

The petition, which Today has chanced upon, copied to the Minister of Interior, Prosper Bani, the Navy Command in Accra, Chairman of the Volta Regional Security Council in Ho, Commander of Kpeve District Police Command of Ghana Police Service, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Mr. Thomas Agbenyo, and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to intervene in the matter.