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15.04.2005 General News

Mobilla's Killers Found?

15.04.2005 LISTEN
By Graphic

3 SOLDIERS TO FACE TRIAL. FOR ALLEGED INVOLVEMENT IN ALHAJI MOBILA'S DEATH

The Tamale police yesterday preferred murder charges against three soldiers for their alleged involvement in the death of Alhaji Issah Mobila during his incarceration in military custody at the Kamina Barracks in Tamale in December last year. They have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

The three, who were arrested and placed in police custody in Tamale, are to be transferred to Accra to face trial. Their names are being withheld for security reasons. According to the Northern regional crime officer, Mr John Wilson, “the police are only acting on directives.”

The attorney-general and minister for justice, Mr J. Ayikoi Otoo, on March 9, this year, directed that the three suspects be arrested, charged and brought to Accra for allegedly causing the death of Alhaji Mobila. He gave the directive in response to a question in Parliament about the status of the docket on Mobila's murder that had been submitted to his office.

Mr Otoo said although the police identified the suspects, the three denied their involvement, adding that they could be tried based on circumstantial evidence. The death of Alhaji Mobila in military custody two days after the general election last year caused much uproar in the Tamale metropolis.

The deceased was the northern regional chairman of the Convention People's Party (CPP) and the chairman of the Bolgatanga branch of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) in Tamale.

Sources at the Attorney General's Department in Accra dismissed claims that the Government was not interested in prosecuting the alleged murderers, and that the delay was purely administrative, since the arrest of the soldiers involved exchanges with the Military High Command and the Ministry of Defence.

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