Ex-Prisoner Officer wants to know why he was tortured

Accra, July 17, GNA - Lance Corporal Isaac Justine Dodoo, a former Prisons Officer on Thursday asked the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to invite Mr B.T. Baba, then a Sports Director of Prisons, to explain why he caused his arrest and torture in 1984.

Lance Corp. Dodoo, now a Security Officer with a private firm, said he was severely tortured and imprisoned for twelve and a half years at the Nsawam Prisons for an alleged abetment to overthrow the then Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government.

He said he was also charged for allegedly helping the inmates of the Usher Fort Prisons with ammunitions to break jail on June 19, 1983. Witness led in evidence by Mr Edward Mingle, Counsel for the NRC, said in April 1984, some soldiers came to search his house claiming that he was planning with one Paul Mall to overthrow the government and hiding some ammunitions and a letter in his room.

He said they found nothing after the search but they took him to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for interrogation where he was asked about the June 19th jailbreak.

Mr Dodoo said at the BNI he leant that Staff Sergeant Agbeli, an ex-convict, had also been arrested. Agbeli allegedly told the BNI that he went to Togo with Dodoo, where after being beaten by some dissidents, he accepted that he helped the inmates with arms to break jail.

He said the dissidents, who claimed they were spies, severely beat them and burnt their bodies with hot iron adding that in order to save them from the torture he lied that he helped the prisoners to escape. The Witness said Paul Mall and himself were taken to the tribunal where the two of them were sentenced to a total of 50 years' imprisonment.

He said on January 4, 1992 at the Nsawam Prisons where he was serving his jail term, an officer threw away his ''Christmas soup" that his sister brought to him whilst he was heating the soup with some inmates.

The Witness said when he complained to another officer, DSP Quansah, the other prison officer arranged and he was severely beaten by about 50 Prison Officers.

Mr Dodoo said at another time, his name was mentioned among a group that were causing riot about the government's amnesty adding that about 500 officers in black and brown beat him with truncheons until he received cuts on his head and injured his knee.

He said among the officers was B.T. Baba, who according to him reported him to the Officers.

Mr Dodoo said he was a footballer but because of the knee injury he could not play again in spite the offers by some teams. He said he was also partially blind due to the truncheon that was used to hit his head.

When Bishop Palmer Buckle, a Commissioner noted that he did not mention B.T Baba when he initially gave his statement to the Commission and was probably doing so in his evidence because a previous Witness had mentioned B.T Baba, Witness replied that he did include that in the statement.

General Erskine, another Commissioner, warned him to be careful of the statements he made adding that his acceptance to have aided the jailbreak on June 19, 1983, could destroy his chances of being accepted back into the Prisons Service though he claimed he lied.