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A legal Practitioner, Evans Gadeto Djikunu, has petitioned the Attorney General to order the arrest of some persons who used to serve as bodyguards of former Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, for allegedly assaulting some members of his election monitoring team in the Akatsi South Constituency during the 2016 general election.

Mr Djikunu, who contested the parliamentary seat in the constituency as an independent candidate polled 11,976 votes, while the incumbent Member of Parliament, Bernard Ahiafor, garnered 16,916 votes.

Three bodyguards

He indicated in his petition that the three bodyguards made it impossible for his campaign team to monitor activities at polling stations, a situation he believed contributed to his defeat.

Narrating what happened in the constituency in his petition, Mr Djikunu said, “I sought accreditation from the Akatsi South District Electoral Office for leaders of each monitoring team to enable them to get close to the presiding officer at each polling station so that they could raise issues with any malpractices that they would see in the course of the election, and also report same to my campaign office for immediate action.”

He added, “However, for reasons inexplicable and regretfully hard to understand, members of my election monitoring team in charge of the Wute Zone of the said constituency were severely assaulted and beaten by the former bodyguards of the immediate past Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon. E.K. Doe Adjaho, without any provocation at all.”

According to Mr Djikunu, the three assailants “were allegedly led by one Inspector Alhassan Musah who was also the personal driver of the former Speaker.”

He said attempts to have the culprits, who are also police officers, arrested have proven futile.

Police crime officer

“Subsequent thereto, sometime in the middle of December 2016, I had a call from the Volta Regional police crime officer that he had been instructed to send the docket to the CID Headquarters, Accra for prompt action. I was, therefore, instructed to see one ASP Prosper Torgbe, who then instructed me to see one Inspector Darkwa, the investigator on the matter. Inspector Darkwa informed me that he was a member of the Homicide Unit of the CID of which Mr Hanson was its head, and that they had been assigned to handle the case.

“Accordingly, I was asked by Mr Hanson to send all the witnesses in the case to the CID Headquarters for their statements to be taken, which I promptly did and by February 2017, all statements of all witnesses in the case had been taken by Inspector Darkwa at the CID Headquarters. It was there I was informed that three police officers had been identified as being those who were involved in the commission of the crime, and that they were Inspector Alhassan Musah, the personal driver of the former Speaker; G/CPI. A. Kachire and G/CPL John Doe. But to my surprise, all attempts to get Mr Hanson and Inspector Darkwa to put these three police officers on trial for justice to be served have failed. In fact, they have not only neglected to do so but have refused to arraign them for the law to take its course for a protracted period of time now.”

AG petitioned

Mr Djikunu has, therefore, petitioned the AG to order the immediate arrest of those involved.

“By reason of the aforesaid, I am humbly appealing to your good office, as a matter of urgency, to order the immediate arrest and prosecution of all those who were involved in the said dastardly act on December 7, 2016 in the Akatsi South Constituency to ensure that justice is done in this matter.”