Death Threat On Police Informant

For blowing the whistle over a 300-acre wee plantation in the Krokosua Forest Reserve in the Juabeso-Bia District of the Western Region, a 28 year old informant Kwaku Dua has had to flee from the wrath of angry farm owners who are after his blood.

Dua, a citizen of Sefwi-Nkateeso has had to seek refuge in Accra away from his wife and children who have had to relocate because of threats on their lives too. The Police also have thrown their hands in despair saying there is nothing they could do to protect Dua. According to the Western Regional Police Crime Officer, Mr. Chris A. Mensah Gray, nothing could be done for him now, though his enemies might be catching up with him.

He advised that Dua bides his time and wait until the Service could convene a meeting between the chief and elders of the communities (Agyemandeem, Dome, Sayereso and Minketewa) where the farm was located, to resolve the issue. However, due to the persistence of the death threat, the Regional Crime Officer has been asked by his superiors at the Police Headquarters in Accra to report to them on the whole case which has put the informant's life in danger, after Dua had petitioned the IGP, The Ghanaian Chronicle learnt yesterday from the Crime Officer.

The informant had also petitioned the Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board and the Minister of Interior and CHRAJ. Exhausted from petitioning authorities to save his life without any end in sight to his plight, Dua told the Chronicle that he had learnt his lessons "Now if am passing and I see some one being murdered, I will not bother myself" he said regrettably in Twi. He has petitioned the Speaker of Parliament and the President, the latter, his sixth after many attempts to get President Rawlings to help him. He said each time he sent a letter to the Castle, some one received it but nothing was heard.

"Since you are our President and have powers over everybody, I am appealing to you to come to my aid in the form of settlement because I can not go back to my hometown. All my properties and farms have been destroyed" Dua pleaded with the President in his petition. Giving insights into how he became a mole in the eyes of his people, Dua said he was an employee of a timber firm in his area and on that fateful day he discovered the wee plantation, he was with a colleague when they came upon 21 young men in the Forest Reserve, which is supposed to be manned by Forestry Officials, engaged by the farm owners to protect it.

Dua told the Chronicle that he informed the Western Regional Police Crime Officer, Mr. Gray who detailed two policemen to go and find out, but the police could not locate the place and so they enlisted his support to go with them and show them the place, which he declined initially, fearing that he could be identified. On the way to show them, he recalled that they gave him a uniform with a helmet to protect him from being identified, but he said their car got stuck on a hill between two communities of Kogyina and Saakro and so they had to push it with the help of some villagers, and it was during that exercise he took off the helmet and was identified. Mr. Gray opined that his life is in danger because he took off the helmet that was to protect him.

But Dua disagreed that he was recognized because he removed the helmet. Asked if it is correct for the informer to accompany the Police team to the Reserve, he responded in the affirmative. After the police had located the place, the Chronicle learnt it took about 48 men, made up of the police, military and residents of the four communities and four days to cut down the plantation. Analysts say the baffling aspect of the drama is that a year after the farm was destroyed, the Police have made no arrests. "People know, but they don't want to come out" The Crime officer told the Chronicle.