Body of drowned Aflao Currency dealer found

Aflao (V/R), Aug. 18, GNA - The body of Donney Azasoo, the currency dealer who got drowned in the sea, when police allegedly chased up currency dealers in a clampdown on Saturday morning at the Aflao border, has been found on Wednesday at a beach in Lome, Togo. But before the family could reach there, when information reached them, the Togolese sanitary staff had, upon the alleged order of the Togolese security, already buried the body in a shallow grave at Atikpodzi cemetery in Lome.

Five members of the deceased's family, were said to have been briefly detained by the Togolese security, when they were being led by some sanitary officers later on Wednesday to exhume the body for reburial in Aflao, Mr. Mensah Azasoo, the deceased's father told the assist in getting the body, which he said was still in a good condition when they tried the initial exhumation.

Meanwhile, the Aflao police have counterclaimed the information about the incidence, that they were not responsible for the events leading to it.

According to Mr Samuel Sackitey, Aflao District Police Commander, they were after Indian hemp peddlers at a different location at the beach, but not currency dealers.

"The currency dealers might have taken to their heels upon seeing the security in the area on a possible false perception that, we were after them. We were not", he insisted, during an interaction with the wee peddlers was an afterthought to cover up the drowning case, the Police Commander retorted: "Who told you that; our exercise was long before the drowning was said to have occurred."

Mr Sackitey said no formal complaint has reached the police, adding, "we are not obliged in assisting the family."

Mr Baba Moro, District Police Crime Officer, who after the incidence on the Saturday told the GNA he "was busy preparing a report on the issue" and could therefore, not have the time to brief the agency, also corroborated his District Commander.

"The report I said I was busy preparing was about the clampdown on wee peddlers at on the day", Mr Moro explained.

"We made one arrest at Denu, but the peddlers we targeted at the beach at Aflao jumped into the sea and swam away, after which, we burnt down some of their makeshift shelters", he added. But Dodzi Azasoo, the younger brother of the diseased insisted the police did chase them up from the Intercity-STC bus terminal, while on their currency business.

"When the police blocked our path towards the Ghana-Togo border, we took to the direction of the sea, and having remained close on our heels, amidst firings, (an issue the District Commander has disputed to the GNA), my brother, me and two others finally jumped into the sea", he said.

Dodzi said three of them landed in Togo without Donney, who he claimed had in possession millions of cedis. An elderly currency dealer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the GNA he had a hint on the impending swoop on Saturday from a policeman friend of his and so did not work on that Saturday.