You are here: HomeNews2003 01 14Article 31542

General News of Tuesday, 14 January 2003

Source: GNA

NRC hears four cases in its maiden hearing

'66 Coup in spotlight
Four cases were on Tuesday heard in Accra when the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) began hearings into human rights violations during unconstitutional regimes.

The four were Mr Amarkai Laryea Amarteifio, Mr Albert Kpakpo Allotey, both of Kaneshie in Accra, Mr Emmanuel Nii Amartey Adjaye of Site Office near the New Times Corporation (NTC) Office in Accra, and Mr Thomas Ekow Halm.

The cases involved detention, unlawful dismissal, unlawful arrests and detention and ill treatment and the petitioners said they bore no bitterness to their offenders but demanded compensation for the violations they suffered.

Confident but tearful Mr Adjaye, 67, an ex-guardsman at the Flagstaff House, was supported with tissue paper and a bottle of mineral water as he narrated the ordeals he went through from February 24 1966, following the ousting of the government of the late Dr Kwame Nkrumah. He told the nine-member Commission, that upon knowledge of the coup on that day he ran and reported to the Kaneshie Police Station and together with a number of other people, were rather kept together in a cell and then brought to the forecourt of the Police station and wheeled to the Police Headquarters.

He said at the Headquarters, they were beaten, made to kneel on stone chippings and moved about forward, backward and to the sides and also prevented from freeing themselves when nature called.

"In the process, I lost a tooth. It was terrible. The ill treatment lasted the whole day of the February 25. On that day we were conveyed to the Central Police Station and locked in two apartments. Soldiers stampeded us down, and we were at the brink of death when a policeman came to intervene", Mr Adjaye said in sobs.

He said the torture continued in Nsawam Prisons for three months. They were kept in a cell with a "disintegrated" toilet facility.

"They gave us one ladle of "koko", porridge prepared with fermented corn dough, and two cubes of sugar for breakfast, and 16 ounces of gari a day for lunch and supper with soup whose surface looked like a mirror. Meat was absent."

Mr Adjaye, then a little above 30 years, and a father to a boy of two and a girl of eight months, said they were not allowed any visits and only allowed to write three copies of letters, which were censored. Mr Adjaye, who incidentally was the first to file a complaint to the Commission when it began work in September 2002, said he was shuttled between Nsawam and Usher Fort Prison before his release on December 7 1967.

"I wasn't paid anything, and there was no formal letter that I had been removed from office. Mr Adjaye spoke of subsequent employment with the Ghana Publishing Corporation (GPC) upon his release, as Security Officer Grade Two and rose through the ranks to the position of head of the security. He said while still at office in January 1990, the GPC engaged another person as head of security without informing him.

He said he petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice and after an unsuccessful legal battle, he was prematurely retired at the age of 55 without the payment of any entitlements, which he said made life very difficult for him and had to approach Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi, former National Security Co-ordinator for financial assistance to enable his daughter go to secondary school. He said upon several petitions the GPC had only paid him three million cedis with the remaining yet to be paid.

Asked what his petition to the Commission was, Mr Adjaye said: "Forgiveness is the law of love. I want to forgive all those who have had a hand. I will be happy if something is given out as compensation. I lost all my property in the barracks where I stayed."