Captain Mahama lynching: Residents flee Denkyira Boase

Barely a day after scores of armed military personnel were deployed to Denkyira-Obuasi to mount a search for residents said to have lynched a military Captain, residents have fled fearing ‘retaliation’.

Capt Maxwell Mahama of the 5 Battalion of Infantry was said to have been on his daily jogging routine on Monday when he was lynched by some residents of Diaso. The nephew of former President John Mahama who according to reports had been deployed there as part of some anti-illegal mining operation was allegedly stoned and burnt by the youth of the area who mistook him for an armed robber.

Reports said he was armed with a gun while jogging, and residents who saw him with the gun raised an alarm, attracting some of the youth in the community who attacked and killed him.

Thirty-five soldiers and two military officers were subsequently dispatched to Denkyira-Obuasi to conducts a swoop in search of the killers of the captain.

Shots from the vicinity shows some residents fleeing at dawn.

Earlier, Spokesperson for the Ghana Armed Forces, Col. Aggrey Quarshie, debunked assertions the troops may brutalize the residents in retaliation for the attack.

"We are not going to expect that they will go and be attacking the community, no...they are going there to protect the Chief of Army Staff.

"We will leave the security agencies that are responsible for investigating such things to do that and we hope that all the culprits will be picked up and brought to book. So we expect the community members to help us arrest all the culprits," he told Joy News.

Meanwhile the Central Regional Police Command has arrested five persons suspected to have taken part in the tragic killing of Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama.