Joy News has recalled cases in which police officers and soldiers cited in abuses and killings are exonerated following internal investigations.
The cases point to growing culture of impunity within the security services as it appears reluctant to take on their own. Taking the cases one after the other, Joy News Manasseh Azure recalled the following stories.
Police in February 2016 on a Wednesday morning mistakenly shot and killed two brothers at the Mampong Midwifery Training School in the Ashanti Region. Francis Gbeneh, 33 and his brother Timothy Gbeneh, 28, were gunned down by the police on the school's campus after a distress call by a female teacher that armed robbers had attacked her.
Police patrol team shoot, kill two police men
On Sunday, September 1, 2013, the two policemen stationed at Gomoa Pomadze, near Winneba, were accidentally shot at by a police patrol team which was responding to a distress call for an armed robbery that night.
Initial reports said Lance Corporal Emmanuel Tetteh, 36, and Lance Corporal Francis Appiah, 28, were gunned down by robbers, but the Ghana Police Service, in a statement, said the two were inadvertently, shot by the Police patrol team.
The incident occurred after the robbers had gone to rob some students of the Pan African Christian University College (PACUC), at their hostel at Gomoa Pomadze.
Their wives have since been struggling to take care of their children. They have relocated to towns in the Volta region. No compensation has been paid them and their demands for justice have been ignored.
Soldiers on rampage
In August 2010, Soldiers from the Fourth Garrison in Kumasi went on a rampage, brutalising more than a dozen policemen at various duty posts in the Kumasi metropolis and leaving three of them unconscious.
In their two-day assault, the soldiers also vandalised property at some police stations and caused some policemen to flee their duty posts.
Three policemen- Sergeant Peter Oppong, Sergeant E. Obuoman and Lance Corporal Zab Tetteh Mensah - were attacked with hammers and left unconscious.
It would be recalled that on May 20, 2010, two military men got infuriated by the decision of officials at Suame to question their driver who was driving without a log book and a driver’s licence.
The two went to the barracks and mobilised their colleagues to assault the police at Suame and fired some gunshots.
Soldiers assault journalists at Independence Day Parade The military exonerated its personnel who assaulted journalists at the Independence Square in Accra during the Independence Day parade on March 6.
The report on the outcome of the Ghana Armed Forces’ investigations into the matter said the soldiers who manhandled photojournalists from the Ghanaian Times and Daily Graphic did no wrong.
“The outcome of investigation, diligently and dispassionately conducted, suggests no wrongdoing on the part of the soldiers as they acted within the rules and guidelines governing the activities at the time of the anniversary parade,” said Colonel M. Atintande, the Director of Public Relations of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) in a cover letter to the report addressed to The Ghanaian Times.
When the PRO of the army was asked about the fact that photographs of the assault showed the hand of a soldier on the cheek of the journalist, he said that was not enough to conclude that they were beating him.
In March 2015 in the Kwabre East District of the Ashanti Region, a 49-year-old amputee man was killed after he was reported to have disobeyed an order by the security personnel, beckoning him to stop whilst driving on his way home.
Kwaku Oppong, popularly known as Noah or Ablaze, was chased into his house by four suspected soldiers and a police officer in a military patrol vehicle, where he was beaten severely before being shot to death.
The military officer additionally subjected the old mother of the deceased and his nephew, known only as Baafi, to several beatings, leading to their admission at the Ankaase Government Hospital, where they are currently receiving treatment.
In the most recent example, a brother of the man killed by soldiers at Kasoa Millennium City last year has rejected a report exonerating the army from any wrongdoing.
Samuel Darko told Joy News the account given by eyewitnesses, including a Criminal Investigations Department (CID) investigator and an Assistant Superintendent of Police contradicted the version provided the Army.
“As far as I am concerned, justice has not been served at all,” Mr. Darko concluded in an interview with Joy News.
A service inquiry conducted by the Military High Command concluded that the 23 soldiers were only acting in self-defence when they shot at three people during a demolition exercise by the 21st Century Construction Company.
The residents of Millennium City had gathered to prevent what they claimed was an unauthorised demolition by an estate firm, 21st Century Construction.
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