Government Moves On Free Press - Publisher, Editor Arrested.

+++ Security agents last Monday repeated an act which past and present workers of the Free Press are familiar with.

They visited the offices of the hard-hitting crusading private newspaper on Monday 26 June 1995, and extended an invitation to the publisher and editor of the Free Press, Tommy thompson and Eben Quarcoo which resulted in their detention at the Legon and Cantonments police stations that very day.

At the time of going to press recently, Tommy Thompson an Eben Quarcoo were still in cells awaiting a word from the police as to whether they will be granted bail or not.

The two according to police sources were arrested and detained on charges of international libel following a complaint by the First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings about a publication last December in the Free Press.

The subject of her complaint and the impending international libel case against the Free Press is said to be a front page story headlined - MILLIONS OF CEDIS SUNK INTO RAWLINGS ELECTIONEERING CAMPAIGN-SAATCHI AND SAATCHI FOR THE JOB.

The story published on December 30, 1994, January 5, 1995 issue of the Free Press is alleged to have among other things stated that Nana Agyemang Rawlings was involved in cocaine and gold trafficking to europe.

The arrest and detention of Tommy Thompson and Eben Quarcoo was characteristically full of drama.

The messengers said Deputy Commissioner of Police S. Aggor in charge of CID whose unit effects all these arrests wanted him but after minutes of waiting he did not appear.

Thompson who knows the terrain very well having been detained twice under the PNDC and recently charged with contempt in the Abban case realised what the trick was all about and braced himself for longer hours at the Police Headquarters while Aggor played the usual hide and seek game.

Both men were in high spirits when visited. Mr Thompson said that he knew such risks of arrest and detention existed when he took to crusading journalism and said this arrest will not deter him from his mission to serve Ghana with his Free Press no matter the price.

The Free Press which was established in 1979 has always lived with danger. In June 1982, cadres of the 31st December Revolution invaded the offices of the Free Press, an action that was followed a few hours later of Tommy Thompson , the publisher,the editor, John Kugblenu and columnist Mike Adjei for one year.

Thompson suffered a stroke in detention, while Kugblenu bowed to the vagaries of detention and died two weeks after his release.

Detention did not frighten Thompson. In 1984 he resurrected the Free Press which went out of production in 1982, with Kabral Blay-Amihere as the editor.

But in November 1985, Tommy Thompson was arrested and detained again for five months without trial.

The detention and the climate of silence and fear hanging over the whole country led to a temporary exit of the Free Press in April 1986.

The Free Press returned to the news stands in 1992 and has since then been hot on the government.

A trial of the two could turn into high noon drama as the First Lady will have to give evidence.