Soldier Re-arrested

LESS THAN 12 hours after an Accra Fast Track High Court's Human Rights Division ordered the immediate release of the five soldiers who were arrested by the Military Police and detained by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Military Police have re-arrested one of them, Sgt. Michael Arthur.

The soldier, who was re-arrested at his home in the presence of his family around 8 pm yesterday, was yet to be located at the time of filing this report, as his counsel, Joe Debrah, was told by the Military Police that he had been handed over to the BNI.

Mr. Debrah, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE , confirmed that he was yet to see his client, as he had gone to the BNI but could not find him there.

According to Mr. Debrah, he was waiting and hoping that the law on arraigning a person before court within forty-eight hours would be respected by the BNI, but said it was too early to comment on the arrest.  

Sgt. Arthur was arrested with Sgt. Richard Somuah Hazel Lamptey and Cpls. Charles Ankumah and Emmanuel Antwi in connection with the murder of Rocco Frimpong, former Deputy Director of Ghana Commercial Bank, and subversion of authority.

The trial judge, Justice Mrs. Irene Danquah, on Tuesday described the action of the Military Police and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) in arresting and detaining the soldiers at an undisclosed location as a flagrant abuse of their human rights. This is in a case in which wives of the soldiers filed an application for habeas corpus on behalf of their husbands, challenging their continuous detention after they were detained for 16 days without trial.

She observed that what the state did by rushing the accused persons to court for a remand just a day before the hearing of the habeas corpus was to render the habeas corpus mute.

The judge described the remand of the soldiers as unlawful and an abuse of the rights of the applicants. She said their detention at an undisclosed location without any remand warrant contravened Article 14 (3) B of the constitution which guaranteed the rights of all individuals, irrespective of race, gender, political affiliation, among others.

Justice Danquah stated that the only explanation given to the court regarding the detention of the applicants by the Acting Director of the BNI was that they did not know that the accused persons were illegally detained, and the Acting Director for Public Prosecution (DPP), Gertrude Aikins, relied on that deposition as well.

She said no error of assumption should be made where the rights of the individual was at stake, and that the court did not believe that the BNI or the military; security agencies of such magnitude, made an error of assumption in the manner the soldiers were handled.

By Fidelia Achama