Woman drags Police Service to court for GHC300,000

Victoria Afful, a lady who was arrested by the police for human trafficking in 2013, has sued the police administration for violating her human rights, as well as that of her son.

The human rights court started hearing the case on March 12, 2014.

Victoria, who has additionally sued the police for damages, is asking the Human Rights Court for an order directed at the respondents – the Director General of Police and the Attorney General – to pay GHC200,000 as compensation to her for wrongfully depriving her of the use of her house and also wrongly detaining her two cars and depriving her of the use of the said cars since September 14, 2013 without any lawful order from a court.

In an affidavit in support of her suit, she is also asking for an order directed at the respondents to pay GHC100,000 as compensation to her son for wrongfully detaining him for no reasonable cause from September 14 - 16, 2013.

Further, she is also seeking for an order directed at the Director-General of Police to release the two cars belonging to her which the police have wrongfully detained to her forthwith.

Additional reliefs being sought include an order that the respondents pay her for the loss of use of her two cars at a cost of GHC250 a day, being the cost of taxi fares among other things from September 14, 2013 till the date the said cars will be released to the applicant.

“An order directed at the respondents to pay to the applicants a total amount of GH?4,200 being money extorted from her by two CID men – Joseph Naab and Emmanuel Gyamfi Yeboah. An order that the GHC4,200 be paid at a prevailing bank rate from the dates of such extortion till date of final and full payment.”

Also, an order that the respondents pay $2,900, €5,150, and GHC9,000, all belonging to the applicant which was missing from her metal safe when the police raided her house, adding the police did not have any excuse to open the safe.

The affidavit added that the police did not take inventory of the items seized from the applicant’s house.

In September 2013, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) raided the home of Victoria, an alleged human trafficker in Weija, following a report by Metro TV’s Samuel Agyemang. In the process, seven ladies whose ages range from 17 to 25 years were rescued by the police.

Several items including different passports of Victoria that had different details, were said have been recovered, and passports of different persons.

The son of the alleged trafficker was also arrested as an accomplice, since he was the only person present in the house with the victims when the raid took place.