Weapons, foodstuffs, and other items included in the casket of Richmond Osei, also known as Kwadwo Tawiah – who died from alleged police beatings last month – are for his use as he embarks on his journey to the world beyond, his father Agya Kwasi Ahenkan has revealed.

The 22-year-old lost his life on the night of Thursday May 26, when police on night patrol duties at Krofuom in the Ashanti Region, reportedly assaulted him on suspicion of being a member of a gang that terrorised people in the area.

The coroner’s report, however, stated that Tawiah died of natural causes, exonerating the police from punishment. News of the autopsy report sparked violent protests from youth of the town until police arrived to calm the situation.

At Tawiah’s funeral on Thursday June 16, photos emerged of his body lying in a coffin and sided by knives, cutlasses, ammunition, food items such as cassava, yam, pepper, as well as a pair of shoes, among other inclusions – an irregularity regarding funeral customs in the country.

The act has been deemed by many as superstitious, and a sign of the family’s quest for justice from supernatural sources.

But speaking on Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM Friday June 17, Tawiah’s father would not be drawn into revealing the source of the items, except to say they were to “see him off”. He reiterated the bereaved family’s disagreement with the pathologist’s findings regarding the death of his son.

According to him, following their examination of his son’s body, they were convinced Tawiah was “really beaten” before he died.

“If someone dies from a heart attack and is being examined, is it the head that is cut open?” he asked rhetorically, adding that even if his son had a heart condition, the assault by the police triggered it.

He added that a sure indicator of the police’s culpability in the demise of Tawiah was their decision to flee the Manhyia Hospital moments after conveying him there for treatment, as they very well knew he was already dead from their beatings.

“Once he gets there (the underworld) he will know what to do with them,” the father said of the items in Tawiah’s coffin, adding: “If you go to the farm with a machete, it will be for the purpose of weeding.”

Asked how a dead person could weed, he retorted: “That’s how you see it… The deceased is 23 years, he didn’t die of natural causes; he has been brutalised to death, so you see him as dead. But once he takes up his machete, you will know what will happen.”