Police beat up businessman

... For allegedly resisting arrest

Some officials of the Narcotics Control Board allegedly assaulted an exporter, who stood surety for a suspected drug dealer, when he attempted to secure bail for the suspect.

“I was so severely assaulted by the officials that, I fell unconscious,” the exporter, Mr. Joseph Onyame, told The Chronicle in Accra on Monday.

According to Mr. Onyame, the investigator, Corporal John Awuni, was supposed to present the suspect, Joseph Nwabueze, a Nigerian, before court to be granted bail but he allegedly failed to do so. The court therefore issued an order to be served on the investigator to produce the suspect before the court.

He said in the course of getting him to execute the order at the regional tribunal, he established a cordial relationship with Cpl. Awuni.

“I called him and he replied that he wanted to see me at the office at the ministry and that he would be standing under a tree waiting for me.” Mr. Onyame said he therefore drove there and met Awuni with one other man.

He said Cpl. Awuni then told him that his boss, Major (Rtd) Abu Brahima, would like to see him but he replied that he had already “finished with him” and so there was no need to see him again and that he was the one he wanted to see.

“As I was talking to Awuni, three other gentlemen whom Awuni said were policemen, surrounded me and he advised me to obey whatever instruction they gave.”

Onyame said he was taken to the premises of the Narcotics Control Broad where Major Brahima, who is the Deputy Executive Secretary in charge of Enforcement, asked him why he had been harassing and threatening Cpl. Awuni. Brahima therefore ordered his men to arrest him, alleging he was an accomplice in the drug case.

Upon his instruction, Cpl. Awuni and his colleagues rushed to handcuff him, which resulted in a struggle.

He alleged that the officers, numbering about eight, started beating him. One of them called Muta Waliko Yahaya, punched him very hard, and in an attempt to free himself, he (Onyame) bit him on the chest. Onyame said he was then hit with a stick on the head and he collapsed.

“When I came to, I was on the ground, handcuffed.”

Amidst more beatings, he alleged, he was dragged into a jeep and driven to the Ministries police station and placed in a cell.

After about an hour, some officers took him to the Stadium Clinic, but he was later referred to the police hospital and then to the 37 Military Hospital where he spent two nights.

After he was discharged, he went to the Ministries Police Station where the police had lodged a complaint of assault against him and he was made to write a statement.

Onyame told The Chronicle that so far, he had spent ?4.5 million on medication. He had lost his ?100, wrist watch and documents covering his land, as well as ?750,000, which was stolen out of ?2 million he had left in his car.

Explaining his side of the story, Cpl. Awuni told The Chronicle that, Onyame resisted when Major Brahima ordered his arrest.

He said on September 22, this year, they arrested three suspected drug dealers, including Joseph Nwabueze who were put before the Regional Tribunal. Their counsel applied for bail but the Narcotics officials protested against it on the grounds that they needed time for further investigations.

He said a search conducted by the police, revealed implements used by the accused in distributing drugs, so they were further arraigned before the Cocoa Affairs Circuit B Court where one of them, Anim, managed to get two sureties for both courts and was granted a ?350 million bail.

“But in the case of Nwabueze, the court insisted that the surety must be a resident of Ghana because he was a Nigerian and could run away at anytime.”

Six people had earlier presented themselves as sureties but Cpl. Awuni said it had been found out that they were bail contractors, so he refused to bring Nwabueze to court for the bail to be executed.

It was at this point that counsel for the accused, Mr. Felix Quartey filed a motion against Cpl. Awuni as a result of which the judge, Justice George Ankamah issued an order for his arrest.

He said a police officer and a court bailiff, together with Onyame and his wife, went to the Osu police barracks to serve him, but they did not meet him.

He said the narcotics officers became suspicious about the role being played by Onyame and therefore Major Brahima called for his arrest.

When The Chronicle checked in at the Ministries police station, the crime officer declined to comment on the matter.