Police Torture Victim Dies ....

...Lawyer Fires Protest Letter to IGP

Despite countless denials by three police personnel at Akyem Ofoase in the Birim North District in the Eastern Region that they had no hand in the death of Kwadwo Amankwa Tia, a farmer, in May last year, Chronicle investigations have established that the deceased met his untimely death through police brutality.

Chronicle findings corroborated by eye-witness reports gathered at the Ofoase police station cells indicate that the 40-year old farmer was tortured leading to his death by the three police constables who effected his arrest.

It was e gathered that on May 24, 2000 three constables, Mortty, John, alias Abe, and Peter, invaded the house of the deceased at about 7p.m. to effect his arrest for allegedly failing to pay ?10 out of the total ?25,000 being his share of the levy for a self-help electrification project.

Chronicle gathered that the deceased, who had just returned from his rice farm and was on his way to wash down, asked the policemen to tell him why they had come to his house to arrest him at night.

Since the policemen were not prepared to listen to the deceased and explain their mission to him, he asked them to allow him to take his cloth from the washing house at the back of his building and accompany them to the police station.

While he was on his way to take his cloth, he insisted that the police tell him his crime before he would accompany them to the police station, but they refused.

As a result, Chronicle learnt, one of the policemen kicked his head, sending him sprawling on the ground. When the farmer fell down the other policemen pounced on him and started beating him, using the butt of their guns.

When the deceased could no longer take the brutalities, he started screaming for help: 'they are killing me, they are killing me, what is my crime to be treated this way?'

His screams had hardly died down when one of his neighbours rushed to the scene, followed later by the deceased's wife.

Mr. John Aidoo, the deceased family legal adviser, in a letter dated May 30, 2001 to the Inspector General of the Police (IGP), also blamed the police for the untimely death of Amankwa Tia.

"My instructions are that on May 24,2001, three police Constables by name Mortty, John alias Abe and Peter from the Akim Ofoase Police station went to the deceased house between about 6.30pm and 7pm to arrest for failing to pay development levy," he wrote.

"In the course of affecting the arrest the police subjected the deceased to severe beating and brutality and laterdumped him at the police cell where he collapsed," the family legal man complained.

He also pointed out that while it was obvious that the deceased was dying the police grudgingly and lackadaisically conveyed the unconscious victim to a nearby clinic for first aid.

On reaching the scene, they questioned the police why they were maltreating the deceased.

It was then that the policemen told them they had a bench warrant from the Community Tribunal at Ofoase No. 1 to arrest Amakwa Tia for defaulting in the payment of his electricity levy.

Chronicle gathered that when the police broke the news, all that came from the deceased was that "it is because of this levy that is why you were sent to kill me, look what you have done to me," he reportedly questioned.

After their explanation, the deceased's wife and the neighbour who came to his rescue fetched water and washed the deceased before they handed him back to the police, who took him away, even though the deceased maintained that he was not served with any court summons.

Chronicle gathered that the chief of Ofoase No. 2. who is a panel member of the community tribunal, had earlier given orders to the police to teach the deceased a lesson, for failing to appear before court.

A source among the inmates who were at police cells that the deceased was in asserted that he was maltreated at the police cells in spite of the protest by some of them.

Later in the night, the deceased, who had received more than he could take, collapsed and instead of the police rushing him to a nearby clinic, Sergeant Dokyi rather administered salt solution orally to the deceased and left him to his fate.

At this stage too, other inmates who saw how Amakwah was being manhandled protested to the police to rush him to a clinic but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

The deceased's nephew, Prince Awuah Nyankyi, Chronicle gathered, who chanced into the incident also appealed to the police to stop but to no avail.

The next day, the police dumped him at Ofoase No. 1 Catholic Clinic, claiming that the deceased was drunk, even though blood was oozing from his nose.

Until the arrival of the deceased's wife at the clinic to narrate what the police did to her husband when they went to arrest him, the story in the clinic was that the deceased was drunk.

With this information and the critical situation of the deceased, the doctors at the clinic referred him to the Akim Oda hospital but he died on the way.

When Chronicle contacted Nana Amoako Acheampong, he denied giving any instruction to the police team, which was dispatched to arrest the deceased to manhandle him.

On whether he was aware that the deceased was never served any court summons to appear before the tribunal, Nana claimed that since other defaulters were in court he did not believe that the deceased was not served.

Already the police had denied beating the deceased when they were invited for questioning. It has been difficult for the widow alone to maintain six children left behind by the deceased.