Adjei-Boadi murdered three of my brothers - Petitioner

Kumasi, Sept 12, GNA- A petitioner on Friday broke down in tears as he recounted to the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) the painful and brutal murder of three of his relatives and two others in 1983, by Warrant Officer Class One (WO1) Adjei-Boadi, a member of the then ruling military junta.

Mr Sampson Addai Berko, former auditor of the Ghana cocoa Board, (Cocobod) told the commission that W/O Adjei-Boadi drove to the former Border Guard headquarters in Accra where the five were being held, told them they have been set free and as they stepped out, he "sprayed them with bullets from behind".

He gave the names of the victims as Patrick Nanti, an uncle, Stephen Ofori and Napoleon Kofi Kyei, both brothers. The other two, he said were Sergeant Ofori-Atta, a military intelligence officer and a brother in-law and Corporal Gyima. The petitioner was giving evidence at the on-going public hearing of the NRC at the GNAT hall in Kumasi.
Mr Berko said he was at Potokrom, a farming community in the Berekum district with Nanti, Ofori and Kyei when they heard of the Giwa abortive coup.
Two days later, they were in the house when Sergeant Ofori-Atta who was being held at the Nsawam Prisons following the overthrow of the Limann administration, came with his friend, Corporal Gyimah. They told us they had been freed by Giwa and were enroute to exile in Cote D'Ivoire.
Sgt Ofori-Attah said he decided to pass through the village to leave a message with the wife, Florence Addai.
"They spent the night with us and the next morning, my uncle and my two brothers decided to join them in their trip to Cote D'Ivoire to buy soap and other commodities for their wives who were then expectant mothers", he said.
Mr Berko said they were arrested at the Atuna border post by some Border Guards on suspicion that they were dissidents. He said they were first sent to Kwameseikrom and later to the Dormaa-Ahenkro border post where they were kept for a week. He said a week after their arrest, a military vehicle was sent down from the Border Guards headquarters to pick them to Accra.
"My father, sister and myself followed up to Accra, visited them and bought food for them".
He said one Friday, a duty officer at the headquarters told them that they were going to be put before court the following Monday and therefore "we should ensure that we bring them food on Saturday".
Mr Berko said "we got there on Saturday to give them the food as we were told by the duty officer but could not find them".
"We were informed they had been transferred to the police headquarters but we did not find them there so we returned to the Border Guards headquarters".
He said it was at this juncture that they were told that Adjei-Boadi gunned them down on Friday after "we had left". The petitioner said the bodies were dumped at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, "we went there and saw the bodies with the intestines gushing out".
It was at this juncture that "he broke down in tears".
He told the Commission that the bodies were never returned to the family for burial, adding, "we could not even openly mourn them as we were scared of the PDCs".
"We later heard they were buried in a mass grave at Mile 11", he said.
Mr Berko said he wants the government to assist them cater for the children of his late relatives.
Isaac Kyere Gyeabour, another petitioner from Sunyani, appealed to the Commission to assist him locate the grave of his brother, Leading Seaman Joseph Gyekye who was executed in 1984 at the Yawhima Shooting Range in Sunyani for re-burial and fitting funeral.
He also wants the military authorities to pay the entitlements of his brother and adequate compensation to the family.
Gyeabour told the Commission that Gyekye was arrested on March 23, 1984 at Drobo whilst returning from a visit to the wife at Dormaa. He was sent to the Sunyani Liberation Barracks and three days later executed by firing squad without trial.
Another witness, Madam Afua Nyameye, a cloth seller from Asuminya near Asante-Bekwai, said her late husband, Kwadwo Achamfour, was tortured to death by soldiers during the Acheampong regime.
Her husband who was a commercial driver was falsely accused of stealing money meant for the payment of cocoa from a purchasing clerk. She said she was herself tortured and detained in a guardroom at the Four Battalion of Infantry in Kumasi for three months.
Madam Nyameye said it was after the death of her husband that the purchasing clerk who falsely accused him of the theft of the money confessed that he did not even know my husband. She said the family of the husband sold off two vehicles then owned by the husband and drove her and her four children she had with her husband out of his house.
Sitting continues on Monday.