Dismissal of my husband accelerated his death - witness

Accra, July 23, GNA - Madam Victoria Aning, wife of a former police officer, on Wednesday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) that the detention of her husband for six months without trial and his subsequent dismissal from the Police Service in 1983 resulted in his death eight years later.

She said her husband, ASP Robert Kweku Antwi, could not withstand the trauma of being detained without knowing his offence. He was dismissed a month after attaining the position of Assistant Superintendent of Police. He suffered a stroke, became bed-ridden for eight years and six months before he died.


Madam Aning, who pleaded with the NRC to help find work for the eight children ASP Antwi left behind, said only one of them was able to get to secondary school form five.


She said she had no money to cater for the rest of the children even after she had sold all her belongings.


Madam Aning said her husband built some machines that could produce cocoa powder and poultry feed but they were currently lying idle. She appealed to the Commission to help her put them into good shape to enable her to use them to make some money.


The witness said during curfew hours after the June 19, 1983 abortive coup, about four masked men came to their residence around 0200 hours and arrested her husband claiming that they had been ordered to bring him to the police station.


Madam Aning said they thoroughly searched their room but found nothing.

The men took Mr Antwi to the police headquarters and then to the Legon Police Station cells the following day.


She said after six months in custody, there was a radio announcement that some police officers, including her husband, who did not perform their duties well, had been dismissed.


He was released from custody and given one week to pack his things and leave the police bungalow.


She said the police provided a vehicle that took them to Koforidua and informed him later that he had been put on pension.


"My husband thought so much about this that he developed a stroke and was admitted to the hospital after which he became bed ridden." When Commissioner Christian Appiah-Agyei asked what she did with her husband's pension of 11 million cedis she collected last year, the witness answered that she shared two thirds among the eight children and took one third.


Witness said among the eight, four were her own children while the others were from two different mothers.