GPHA worker shot dead

35-year-old staff of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has been shot dead by some unknown assailants at Acheampong Village, a suburb of Tema Newtown.

The deceased, Frank Owoteh, a worker with the Logistics Department at the Tema Fishing Harbour, was shot in his right thigh through his trapdoor at his residence yesterday dawn by three masked gun-wielding men who invaded his house.

He was immediately rushed to the Port Clinic in Tema for medical attention but was pronounced dead on arrival.

His body has been deposited at the Police Hospital in Accra for autopsy.

The GPHA crane operator left behind a wife, Priscila Asantewaa Ampah, and two sons who were terrified after the incident.

Two other occupants of the house, who were said to be navy personnel of the Eastern Naval Command in the area, were put under house arrest.

The apartment of Frank Owoteh had been stained with blood from the kitchen to his bedroom when DAILY GUIDE visited the scene.

Information gathered had it that the deceased attempted fighting off the robbers by taking a knife. This perhaps provoked the robbers to shot him in the thigh, which affected his groin and resulted in his death following profuse bleeding.

They were made to lie down on the bare floor in the house by one of the killers who was wielding a pump action riffle.

Wife of the deceased, who reportedly saw the robbers breaking their door when she went to urinate, told DAILY GUIDE that the attackers came at about 1:20 am.

“They asked me where is Akosua and I replied, ‘I don’t know anyone by such a name’ and they started breaking the door. I quickly raised an alarm… which woke up my husband who was fast asleep in the bedroom. The robbers forced and opened the kitchen door and entered but my husband who met them… held the trapdoor to the hall as one of the robbers tried to open but could not,” she narrated.

Mrs Owoteh recalled that one of the robbers wielding a pump action gun fired through the trapdoor, hitting her husband in the thigh close to his groin.

She said the assailants entered the hall where they took a television set, a laptop and a mobile phone but later left the television in the kitchen and escaped with the phone and laptop.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Kwaku Boadu Peprah, Deputy Tema Regional Police Commander, who led a team of crime scene investigators to the scene, stated that police had launched investigations into the unfortunate incident.

According to him, patrols would be intensified in the area to curb the rampant robberies in the community.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Naval Command has also visited the scene to get firsthand information on the incident in which two of their officers were physically abused by the criminals.