By Larry-Alans Dogbey

An interesting thing happened during and after the investigations into the serial killings of the 34 women.

It is a story of how somebody was rewarded for covering-up the real killers or the perpetrators of such heinous crime and being promoted to the highest point of his career, Director of the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

After the investigations, some other members of the investigating team were indeed sent for officer training at the Ghana Police Training School at Tesano in Accra, an opportunity which is envied in the Ghana Police Service.

It is also a case where the police rules and regulations were broken.

It has emerged that the ex-CID boss, David Asante-Apeatu, months before leaving office to take up an appointment with Interpol in France, ransacked the Homicide Unit of the CID, collecting all relevant materials including photographs and documents on the serial killings with a claim that he, making a video documentary on the serial killings.

He collected the items from the Crime Scene Investigators who included Hanson Gove Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and one other ASP of a northern extraction now said to be with the Police Prosecution Department.

It is not yet clear whether he returned the documents, photographs and other materials after the disputed documentary was done.

The question on many minds is whether those conducting the current investigations ordered by President John Evans Atta Mills will be getting the relevant documents and other materials to peruse the case thoroughly. There are also questions as to whether the ex-CID head will be invited to provide some insight into the probe.

Senior police officers at the CID headquarters who spoke to The Herald, have said Charles Quansah maintains that he does not have the capacity and strength to kill some of the women who were three times his stature. Some officers insist that the real killers are still at large.

Most of the murdered women found across the Accra metropolis were seen naked with their legs wide spread apart and whitish substance said to be sperm oozing from their vagina.

Promotion

David Asante-Apeatu was part of the investigations into the horrific murders. He was at the time at Police Forensic Laboratory and, most times, led a team of investigators to a crime scene anytime a corpse was spotted in the metropolis.

He holds a Masters’ Degree in Chemistry from Kharkov State University in Russia, and also has expertise in ballistic and firearms as well as document examination.

Mr. Asante-Apeatu became the CID boss under a very bizarre circumstance, leaving most of his senior police officers spellbound.

He goes into history as the first ever police officer in Ghana to be promoted from the rank of Chief Superintendent of Police to head the CID section of the Police Service.

He was jumped for the position of Chief Superintendent of Police by the Kufuor administration and made Director of CID.

The position of Director of CID has always been for Commissioners of Police; hence occupants of the position are called CID Commissioners, and this is spelt out in the police regulation.

It was while in office that Mr. Asante-Apeatu got promoted to the rank of a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), to the surprise of many senior police officers, including some retired Inspectors- General of Police.

From the rank of Chief Superintendents, one is promoted to Assistant Commissions of Police (ACP), but in the case of Mr. Asante-Apeatu, he was jumped and promoted to Deputy Commissioner of CID.

An officer, Joana Sarpong, who could not bear the circumvention of the police regulation, lodged a blustery protest with the Police Council, then chaired by Vice-President Alhaji Aliu Mahama, and after some months, she was also elevated in rank.

Joana Sarpong’s contention was that Mr. Asante-Apeatu had served under her at the Police Crime Laboratory, and that the police administration had been unfair to her by promoting her junior above her.

Besides, she argued that the police administration had not taken any disciplinary action against her to warrant the promotion of her subordinate to be her boss whilst leaving her to her fate.

Embarrassed by the situation, she was also secretly promoted by the police administration.

Charles Quansah’s Role and the Contradiction of Mr. Asante-Apeatu

Charles Quansah, according to Asante-Apeatu, confessed to killing nine (9) out of the 34 women during police investigations.

He was, however, prosecuted for only one of the murders. Interestingly, he was sentenced to death for killing one Akua Serwaa in Kumasi, which happened prior to Quansah’s arrest in Adenta in Accra over the death of one Joyce Boateng, five years later.

He not prosecuted on that case. Mr. Asante-Apeatu later claimed that he holds the view that Quansah killed all the 34 women.

Another shocking thing The Herald discovered was that during the investigations into the serial killings, Mr. Asante-Apeatu was captured several times saying that a group or groups of persons were involved in the murders.

When he was later confronted on this claim after the prosecution of Quansah, he backtracked, and said that he was of this view that Quansah killed all the women.

One other interesting thing about Mr. Asante-Apeatu as far as the serial killings were concerned is that throughout the period of the killings, he maintained that the women were killed elsewhere and their bodies dumped at the spots various where they were found.

He contradicted himself when claims were made to the effect that some of the corpses were brought in from Togo.

He insisted that the women were rather killed at the very spots they were found.

Significantly, however, some newspapers had reported that there were no signs of any struggle between the women and their allege killers or killer at the spot where the corpses were found.

more to come.