Soldiers To Face Punishment For Assaulting Police

Mr Salifu Saeed, Northern Regional Minister and Chairman of the Regional Security Council on Thursday said soldiers who assaulted police officers in Tamale on Wednesday would be punished.

He said 'Officers who took the law into their hands to perpetrate violence yesterday would be punished to deter others from resorting to such acts in the future.'

He emphasised that 'Those officers, who are not up to the task in the region, would be kicked out of the region adding the disciplinary action would affect commanders and other officers, who would be found culpable in this act.'

The Minister said this when briefing journalists in Tamale on Thursday after a joint Military and Police durbar at the Air Force Base in Tamale.

A joint team of Military and Police Commanders from Accra attended the durbar to find out the causes of Yesterday's (May 16, 2018) confrontation between the soldiers and police in Tamale where soldiers assaulted eight police personnel in the Metropolis.

Members of the joint team included; Commissioner of Police (CoP) Mr Kofi Boakye, CoP Mr Prosper Agblorh, Director General of Police Welfare, who represented the Inspector General of Police, and Air Commodore Augustine Alfred Appiah, Air Force Commander, who represented the Chief of Defence Staff.

On Wednesday, May 16, 2018, a group of armed soldiers went on rampage in Tamale assaulting police officers leading to serious injuries to eight police officers.

A soldier ran away from a police criminal investigations department in Tamale where a caution statement was being taken from him following an assault case against him, and he was later arrested at the Bank of Ghana area in Tamale main town.

This did not go down well with other soldiers, who mobilised in their vehicles fully-armed and moved to the Regional Police Headquarters shooting and beating any police officer in sight.

It took the intervention of the Regional Minister to calm down the situation.

Mr Saeed said an investigative team comprising members of the Regional Security Council had been set up to find out the causes of the violence and to recommend appropriate sanctions to be taken against the culprits and condemned the act perpetrated by the soldiers saying it was highly unacceptable, attributing it to a command failure on the parts of the commanders of soldiers and police in the region.

CoP Agblorh said what happened was unacceptable adding such things would only play into the hands of criminals assuring that efforts would be made to ensure that such acts did not occur again.

Air Commodore Appiah said the Military abhorred such acts urging officers of the security agencies to respect the roles of one another in the discharge of their duties.