UP activist recounts his ordeal in prison

Accra, July 9, GNA - Mr Emmanuel Odartey France, a former a former young activist of the United Party, on Wednesday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) that the pain of not being present at his father's funeral was still fresh with him.

He told the Commission that he was then in prison under the Preventive Detention Act without any charge when he lost his father.

He said he wondered why he was given an additional five years after serving a first full term of five years.

Mr France also asked why inmates of prisons at that time were served bread only once at Christmas time.

He said he answered a government's request for a list of people to report to the Police.

Mr France, who said he suspected that one Ahimah, who sold banku in front of their Bukom House, reported him to the authorities. He said after reporting himself, one Quartelai Quartey, a local organiser of the then Convention People's Party, and three others came to the Police Station.

Quartey began insulting him and told him that he and the others named in the list would definitely go to jail for five years and serve five extra years.

According to Mr France, he and his colleagues were put in a vehicle and sent to James Fort Prison.

They spent one-and-a-half years there. One day eight of them were put into a vehicle and sent to the Kumasi Prisons.

Among the people on board were Mr Enoch Mensah, Mr H. E. Plange Cudjoe, George Quarshie, Oti Ankrah and one Kpakpo, all of whom were now dead. They were brought back to the Ussher Fort Prison where they spent the next five years.

Mr France said in all he spent more than eight years in prison, and said he would never forget the day an earthquake erupted but they were kept in the prison and never allowed to go out.

Mr France said he had no ill feeling for either Madam Ahimah or Mr Quartey.