Probe Into Military Brutality On Police

The Military High Command has dispatched a team of investigators to Kumasi to begin preliminary enquiries into the circumstances that led to attacks on some police personnel by some soldiers in Kumasi.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Director of the Public Relations Unit of the Ghana Armed Forces, Col W. K. Nibo, said the soldiers and the police personnel had been asked to exercise restraint.

On Friday, June 4, 2010, soldiers from the Fourth Garrison in Kumasi went on rampage, brutalising more than a dozen police personnel at various duty posts in the Kumasi metropolis, leaving three of them unconscious.

The soldiers also vandalised property at some police stations and caused some police personnel to flee their duty posts.

In all, 12 police personnel were assaulted.

Col Nibo pointed out the fact that the military and police were the major players in the security machinery of the country, stressing that if any antagonism existed between them, it would not augur well for anybody.

He appealed to the general public to remain calm, since the situation was under control.

Meanwhile, Lance Corporal Zabdiau Tetteh Mensah, the policeman who sustained injuries to his head during the rampage, has been discharged from hospital.

Mensah was hit in the head with a hammer by the soldiers who attacked him and two other colleagues who were on duty at the Sofoline area at 5 a.m. on Saturday, June 5, 2010.

At a news briefing in Kumasi yesterday, the Ashanti Regional Police Commander, DCOP Patrick Timbillah, said the incident was being investigated.

He said the issue was a sensitive one and that there had already been a series of meetings between the military and the police at the highest level on the incident.

He said efforts were being made to maintain the relationship between the two security agencies, adding that there was cordiality at the highest levels of the police and military commands and that the only problem was with the lower levels where there was “bitterness between the rank and file”.

“We have done a lot and as of now the joint night patrols are going on cordially. We think we need to come together to continue the war against criminals,” DCOP Timbillah said.

The Regional Police Commander said there was no cause for alarm and that the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Northern Command had been meeting with the soldiers and had promised to help resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, soldiers on duty at the Garrison Barracks yesterday morning prevented a police vehicle from passing through the barracks which is behind the Regional Police Headquarters and the Accident and Emergency Centre of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

Ironically, the soldiers allowed civilian vehicles to pass through.

Responding to the latest incident, DCOP Timbillah said it was “unfortunate” and said as far as he was concerned, efforts were underway at the high offices to “patch up”.

He said the leadership of the military was not condoning the actions of the troops and had promised to co-operate fully with investigations.

Meanwhile the soldiers who allegedly attacked the policemen are yet to be identified.