CHRAJ is ready for you – Whittal to ‘tortured’ ModernGhana journalist

Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Joseph Whittal has served notice his outfit is ready to receive complaint from the ModernGhana journalist who maintains he was abused by personnel of the national security.

According to him until the matter is formally reported to CHRAJ, they cannot step in.

“As CHRAJ, we comment on issues that are egregious. Unless a complaint is brought to us, we cannot jump unto the scene. We are a body set up to receive concerns and so the journalists can engage us free of charge on the matter,” he told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Thursday.

Editor of ModernGhana, Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri has recounted how he and his colleagues were detained and abused by officials of the national security.

Abugri has said that he was tortured and beaten by National Security operatives while in detention following a raid of their office and their subsequent arrest.

Mr Abugri, who was released on Saturday, 29 June 2019, said he was not spared by his captors who, he claimed took turns to hit and taser him.

However, the National Security said there was no physical abuse on the suspect.

“The National Security Council Secretariat has taken notice of reports that Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri, one of the two suspects from Modern Ghana who was arrested for engaging in cyber-crimes, has made claims of being subjected to acts of torture whilst in the custody of its officers."

“The Secretariat takes a very serious view of these claims and wishes to state, in no uncertain terms that these allegations are false. We consider it to be a clear and deliberate attempt by the suspect to discredit the investigations and the case against him."

"Torture and manhandling of suspects are not part and parcel of the culture and architecture of the secretariat under the administration of President Akufo-Addo,” a statement from National Security said.