Ex-Town and Country Planning security personnel testify at NRC

Accra, Oct. 23, GNA- Two former employees of the Town and Country Planning Department on Thursday prayed that the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) recommend compensation for brutalities they unjustly suffered from the Police in June 1980.

Mr Ayanga Tindana and Mr Lamisa Busanga then security men with the Department stationed at Cape Coast, said one Mr Domfeh, the Regional Director, wrongly implicated them in the theft of a vehicle and caused their arrest, together with Mr Charles Aidoo, a driver.

They alleged that Mr Domfeh made the Police to brutalise them.

Mr Aidoo died shortly after their release from the six-week detention. His son, Christopher, testified at the hearing on Thursday, saying his mother also died later and as a result, he and his seven siblings had to abandon their education after the basic level. In separate testimonies, both Mr Tindana and Mr Busanga told the Commission that Mr Domfeh and some other senior officers of the Department caused their arrest over a missing pick-up.

They alleged that Mr Domfeh put them before a Deputy Superintendent of Police and instructed six policemen, including one Inspector McCarthy, to beat them up severely with truncheons to extract confessions from them.

According to the witnesses, the policemen pulled the penis and testicles of Mr Aidoo, who came out of custody very sick and died shortly.

Now partially blind, Mr Busanga said he did not know what object the police used to strike him from behind, and attributed his predicament to beatings he suffered.

He said he fell with a bang while in custody and had since developed a heart disease.

During the hearing, two members of the Commission inspected Mr Tindana's body and reported that there were scars on the left hand and a swelling on the right elbow.

Witnesses said they were denied visitors while in detention. They were also not allowed legal representation when they were arraigned before court on a charge of theft.

They said Mr Domfeh tried unsuccessfully to influence them to confess to the charge, adding that for a number of times they were in court, the case was never mentioned.

They said they were later dismissed without appearing before any disciplinary committee, and also without their salary differences being paid them, except Mr Busanga who was paid three million cedis later in the 1990s.