Man appeals for restoration of his dignity

Tamale, Dec. 31, GNA - A 30-year-old businessman in Bunkpurugu in the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo District, who was wrongly accused of being an armed robber but was cleared after investigations, has asked the Military High Command to restore his dignity. Mr Findib Kona, the Businessman, appealed to the Command to issue a statement to the effect that after their investigations he had been found innocent.

He said since the allegations were made against him in October 2007 all his trading partners in Togo were avoiding him and had refused to transact business with him. Mr Kona said the ordeal he went through in the hands of the soldiers following the allegations that he was an armed robber had also affected his health.

Speaking to the GNA in Tamale on December 5, 2007, after filing a formal complaint at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), in Tamale, Mr Kona said the soldiers exerted one of the worse forms of torture and brutalities on him on allegations that he was an armed robber.

Mr Kona mentioned the names of the soldiers who tortured him as Lieutenant Kuseimi, leader of the soldiers, and one Corporal Atsu. The soldiers, he alleged, heated a stone and a knife and forcibly put them in his palms for some minutes and forced him to step on the heated stone while one of the soldiers, one Corporal Atsu forcibly opened his jaws and spat saliva into his mouth. He explained that he dealt in motor bicycle spare parts in Bunkpurugu and was on his way to visit a friend in Napkanduri, a town in the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo District on October 29, 2007 when a group of soldiers picked him up and alleged that he was an armed robber and one of those who had killed a soldier in the area. Mr Kona claimed that the soldiers used the butt of AK 47 riffles to hit him many times on his ribs while others used their boots to kick him and warned him not to shout or else they would kill him and throw him into the bush.

Mr Kona said he was put in a white pickup vehicle and driven to the private residence of Madam Elizabeth Pigit Poyari, Former District Chief Executive, in Bunkpurugu before they stopped the torture. He said when he was removed from the bucket of the pickup, corporal Atsu sought permission from Lieutenant Kuseime to shoot him dead since he alleged that he had killed their colleague soldier in a gun battle, but he was refused.

He said it was one Sergeant Tanko, who pleaded with his colleague soldiers to release him since he would have confessed if he was actually an armed robber. He said the others agreed and sent him to Bunkpurugu and handed him over to his family. Mr Kona said the next day in the private residence of Madam Poyari, where he was directed to report himself daily to the soldiers after his release, one of them used the butt of a gun to hit his neck and he was still feeling the pains.

He claimed that the soldiers put him in a latrine hole from 0600 hours until 1600 hours and that even then it was an officer of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) stationed in the East Mamprusi District, who intervened and saved him from dying in the latrine. Mr Kona said upon his release he visited the Assemblies of God Health Centre in Nanpkanduri but he was refused treatment because he had no Police report form.

He said the Police in Nanpkanduri also refused to issue him with a report form because according to them they were not prepared to deal with armed robbers.

Mr Kona said all efforts to get the report form were futile and he had no other option than to rely on drug stores until one Father Augustine Ayaga of the Catholic Church in Bunkpurugu heard of his ordeal and came to his aid and sent him to the Bolgatanga Hospital. Mr Kona said he had been traumatised and had bodily pains. He said he still had traces of blood in his faeces. Lieutenant Colonel William Omane Agyekum, Commanding Officer in charge of the Sixth Infantry Battalion (6BN) in Kamina Barracks in Tamale, told the GNA in an interview that Mr Kona was picked up as a suspected armed robber when armed robbers killed a soldier in the District.

He denied that Kona was tortured but indicated that the soldiers interrogated and released him after they found that he was innocent. Even though Kona showed his wounds from the ordeal and produced pictures of his alleged torture to the GNA, Lt. Col. Agyekum maintained that the pictures might be faked to incriminate the soldiers of wrong doing for Mr Kona to win public favour. The GNA investigations, which took almost one month to complete, revealed that some soldiers, who were on their way to a specific location where they could access MTN signals to take advantage of free-night calls, bumped into armed robbers, who were shooting indiscriminately and in the process killed one Private Owusu Emmanuel. 31 Dec. 07