Case of judges' murder for NRC

One of the cases likely to take a great deal of the time of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) is the 30 June 1982 kidnap, torture and murder of three High Court Judges and a retired army officer.

Credible evidence available to The Daily Dispatch indicates that representatives of the families of the four will petition the NRC between now and the next two weeks to try to get answers to a number of unanswered questions.

These range from the reactions of ex-President Jerry Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu, the confession of the late Joachim Amartey Kwei on two occasions at the Chapel in the prisons and when tied to the stake, minutes before his execution.

The four who were murdered were Justice K.A. Agyepong, S.A. Sarkodie; Cecilia Koranteng-Addo and Major Sam K. Acquah (rtd). Those tried, convicted and sentenced to death were Amartey Kwei, L/Cpl S.K. Amedeka, L/Cpl Micheal Senya, Johnny Dzandu and Tony Tekpor. Amedeka was tried in absentia and to date, remains a fugitive from justice.

Proceedings of the trial, as in George Agyekum’s book, The Judges Murder Trial of 1993, for example, reveal that before former President Rawlings’ broadcast to the nation on 4 July 1982, that he did not know the identity of the kidnappers, he was not speaking the full truth.

Coincidentally, some of the persons who were present when Rawlings was informed about the identity of the kidnappers on 2 July 1982 are alive and are prepared to face the former President at the NRC should the need arise.