NDC FIGHTS FOR QUANSAH
Serial Killing Of Women
Leading members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) are falling over each other in an effort to defend the convicted serial killer of women, Charles Ebo Quansah.
Even though the NDC had claimed that it was disturbed by the murder of 34 women in Accra between 1998 and 2001, the party's leadership has, since Quansah's arrest and prosecution, been running riot in defence of the convicted murderer.
DAILY GUIDE learnt that the NDC has held a series of meetings since the screening on national TV of a documentary on Quansah.
Quansah, who admitted killing eight of the women, has been sentenced to death, and is currently at the condemned cells of the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons, but a number of politicians seem to have placed more value on the rights of Quansah than the lives of the women he confessed to killing.
In the past two weeks, NDC apparatchiks, including special assistant to former President Jerry Rawlings, Victor Smith have rubbished the conviction of Ebo Quansah, saying that he was made a sacrificial lamp.
Even though the killings have since ceased, former President Rawlings, founder of the NDC; Victor Smith, his special aide; Hon Alban Bagbin, Minority Leader in Parliament; and Ama Benyiwaa Doe, NDC National Women's Organizer among others, seem to have had sleepless nights over the recent screening.
The former president had accused unnamed 15 cabinet ministers in the Kufuor administration as the brains behind the serial killings that rocked some parts of the country in the latter part of his administration.
On June 4, 2003, the former president told a large crowd of his admirers that some 15 cabinet ministers in President Kufuor's government were behind the murders.
However, he refused to name them, promising to do so only before the Antoa Nyama deity or if he underwent 'chemical interrogation'.
But with such spurious allegation still hanging in the air, it was only a matter of time before the NDC gurus jumped on any authentic information that would discredit the party founder.
The Minority Leader, Alban Bagbin had indicated that the convict was a sacrificial lamb who was tagged as a serial killer for propaganda purposes.
The case of Victor Smith was not different as he engaged the former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Peter Nanfuri on radio, insisting that the ex-IGP had confided certain 'secrets' about the murders to him.
According to Mr Smith, the former police boss had rushed to his office one early morning, just after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had taken over the reigns of government, alleging that President Kufuor had stopped him (Nanfuri) from following a major lead to Togo that could have unmasked the faces behind the heinous crime.
Mr Nanfuri vehemently denied Smith's allegations, warning Victor not to draw him into 'dirty politics'.
According the former police boss, he had never visited the residence of the former president since the NDC was kicked out of power, pointing out that the only time he met Victor Smith was at the funeral of Rawlings' aide-de-camp, WOII Tetteh's funeral at Burma Camp.
Ama Benyiwaa Doe, the NDC Women's Organizer had also consistently slanted the police and judiciary on radio for doing an unsatisfactory job, but failed to make an input when asked to.
The opposition party's interest in the matter was so deep that at a point, official documents sighted by DAILY GUIDE stressed that there were attempts at the Nsawam Prisons to coach the culprit to deny his own admissions and implicate members of the current government.
Soon after Rawlings' June 4 claims, a Senior Chief Prison Officer, Superintendent Victor Agbelengor, set up meetings between the condemned prisoner and other NDC ex-ministers who were then in prison.
Quansah was said to have met with Messrs Kwame Peprah, Victor Serlomey, Ibrahim Adams and George Yankey on two separate occasions in the office of Agbelengor, who claimed he only wanted to assist Quansah to seek redress.
The condemned prisoner was given such a VIP treatment that he from then on failed to eat prison food but was fed on the portions of food prepared for the former ministers from home.
Word of the secret meetings eventually leaked among the inmates of the prison, for which an investigation was conducted by Ministry of the Interior.
“The Ministry is satisfied that Supt. Agbelengor acted improperly when he set up meetings for Condemned Prisoner Charles Ebo Quansah and unidentified supposed Legal Aid Personnel, and ex-ministers Kwame Peprah and others.
There are no records of proceedings at the meetings and since these meetings started immediately and after the ex-President's claims that he knew those ministers involved in the murders, we cannot but believe that Condemned Prisoner Charles was being coached to corroborate Ex-President Rawlings' claims,” the findings concluded.
Quansah was first arrested on 19th August 1986 at Dansoman in Accra for attempting to rape one Alberta Tilly Acquah and was sentenced to 9 years' imprisonment in hard labour.
After that sentence, he was arrested in connection with the murder of Augustina Amasa Quartey in Kumasi, in June 1995; attempted rape of Yaa Abora in Kumasi, in 1995; murder of Elizabeth Quayson, alias Afua Siwobo, and another rape at a village near Kumasi, before he was finally nabbed for the murder of Joyce Boateng and subsequently that of Millicent Mawuena Adeku.
Since 2001 when he was arrested, the serial murders of women in Accra had ceased, but the NDC is still sympathising with Quansah for reasons best known to themselves.