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On June 30, 1982, three judges and an army officer were abducted from their homes in Accra, during curfew hours. Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council, the military junta that had seized power from the constitutionally-elected government of President Hilla Limann six months earlier, made a radio and television broadcast to the nation, stating emphatically that enemies of the revolution had carried out the abductions. On July 3, 1982, four days after the abductions, a shepherd tending his sheep discovered the charred bodies of the four persons at the Bundase Firing Range, a facility belonging to the Ghana Armed Forces. Apparently, the victims had been driven 50 miles into the Afram Plains, executed in cold blood, and their bodies doused in petrol and set on fire. Thank God, rain fell while the bodies were in flames, and it was possible for the bodies to be identified. Following intensive pressure from professionals and the ordinary people of Ghana, the PNDC appointed retired Chief Justice Samuel Azu Crabbe to head a Special Investigation Board to investigate the matter. Incidentally, all the three judgers � Mr. Justice Fred Poku Sarkodie, Mr. Justice Kwadwo Adjei Agyepong and Mrs. Cecelia Koranteng Addo � were sitting on review cases involving victims of the atrocities of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, the previous military junta that was also headed by Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings. After months of sitting, the SIB recommended the arrest and prosecution of 10 persons. They were Joachim Amartey Quaye, a member of the Provisional National Defence Council, Daniel Alolga Akata Pore, also a member of the ruling junta and Major Kojo Tsikata (rtd), Special Adviser to the PNDC. Mrs. Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, wife of the Chairman of the military junta, was cited. She was alleged to have kept the key to the vehicle used by the murderers, a white Fiat Campagnola jeep. The Attorney-General, Mr. G.E.K. Aikins, decided against conventional wisdom to prosecute only Amartey Quaye and four others -Lance Corporal Samuel Amedeka, Michael Senya, Tekpor Hekli, and Johnny Dzandu. The five were found guilty and held at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons awaiting execution. On June 19, 1982, L/Cpl Amedeka escaped from Nsawam, following a jail-break organised as part of an attempted coup led by Corporal Halidu Gyiwa. There were allegations that Flt. Lt. Rawlings was one of those who ordered the killings, obviously aimed at cowing down the judiciary, and also to punish members of the bench, who were perceived as reversing the gains of June 4. Incidentally, all the three judges had adjudicated in cases brought before the High Court by aggrieved victims of the so-called June 4 People�s Courts. Squadron Leader George Tagoe, himself an AFRC convict, told the Reconciliation Commission appointed later by President John Agyekum Kufuor that Amartey Quaye had told him, while both of them shared a prison cell at Nsawam, that Jerry Rawlings and Kojo Tsikata, his Special Adviser on the PNDC, were the principal actors in the abduction and murder drama. Incidentally, long before the Reconciliation Commission, Jerry Rawlings had tried to exact a confession from Amartey Quaye minutes before the order to fire at his execution took place, at a location near the John Teye Memorial School on the Accra-Nsawam Road. When state-run Daily Graphic, which called itself �People�s Daily Graphic in the heat of the so-called revolution, published what was said to be the words of a penitent man, many Ghanaians rose up in their condemnation. The Editor of the paper, Mr. Kojo Yankah, was dismissed by a radio announcement. His dismissal was obviously a damage-limitation exercise, following complaints from the public on the way and manner the so-called confessions were extracted. In the words of Rt. Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Kwaku Asante, now Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana, came under the serious wrath of God Almighty as he sat on his mighty throne on June 30, 1982. According to the head of the Methodist Church, by obstructing the system of justice and tinkering with work of the three judges, who were carrying their legitimate duties, the perpetrators of the heinous crime committed a grievous sin in the eyes of the Almighty, and brought the nation under the scourge of God. �Justice comes from the Bible, and judges are God-chosen ambassadors of the earth, so if you kill a judge because he or she carries out legitimate duty of bringing justice, you incur the wrath of God,� said the head of the Methodist Church in a sermon in Kumasi. It is instructive to learn that one of the worst famines in the history of Ghana was occasioned by a severe drought followed the heinous crime. Most Ghanaians were underfed, and what became known as the Rawlings Chain, adorned the necks of both the young and old. Thirty-one years after the crime, the truth about the godfathers who ordered the abduction and murders has still not been exposed, in spite of the obvious leads at the crime site and in public life. The clumsy attempt to cover up the crime from official circles has left in its wake suggestions of top complicity. But, neither the Special Investigation Board nor the Reconciliation Commission has been able to state emphatically that Jerry John Rawlings and his advisers were deeply involved in one way or the other with the abduction and murder of the three judges and the retired army officer. On the night of January 3, 1982, Flt Lt. Rawlings made his second broadcast to the nation, after seizing power in the mid-morning of Sunday, December 31, 1981, and accused the Limann administration of �deliberately reneging on the pledge to continue with the house cleaning exercise� of his previous military junta, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. He was less than charitable with his words in the description of the Limann regime. He said the regime he overthrew was the most disgraceful in the history of the nation. �It is only in recent times that criminals and such likes have become respectable in our society.� It is instructive too to recall that L/Cpl Amedeka, who led the murder squad, stated emphatically that at the time they were carrying out the sordid deed, they were convinced that they were carrying out the instructions of the PNDC. The murder vehicle, a brand new Fiat Campagnola jeep, was part of the general state fleet of vehicles, and was taken from the fleet of State House and parked at the residence of Flt. Lt Rawlings at Ridge in Accra. We are told that the key to the vehicle was retrieved on a table in the sitting room of the Rawlingses. It is also interesting to learn that three of the murderers � Michael Senya, Tekpor Hekli and Jonny Dzandu � were all residing at the boys quarters of the Rawlingses on the night of the murder. I do not think we need any ghost to link the former first couple of the land to this heinous crime. An Accra psychologist, Mr. William Atta Warmann, is in no doubt about the link between the abduction and murders, and the role of the junta head at the time, with the intention of seeking justice for the families of the three high court judges and the retired army officer who were abducted and summarily executed at Bundase. I share his sentiments. I believe the Special Investigation Board fell short of establishing the link to the godfathers of the crime. The Reconciliation Committee, on the other hand, was concerned more with soothing the pains of the victims, than establishing the big shots behind the crime. In my humble opinion, Jerry John Rawlings and Kojo Tsikata cannot escape blame for the most heinous of crime in this nation�s political history. Jerry Rawlings must answer for his role in the abduction and murder of the three judges and a retired army officer.