Naval Captain (Rtd.) Baffuor Asase-Gyimah, former National Security Coordinator, on Tuesday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) that some evidence of torture levelled against the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) should be taken with a pinch of salt.
He also said he was amazed at allegations made against Peter Nanfuri, then Director of the BNI, during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era. "People are throwing dust into the eyes of the honourable members of the Commission, but when the dust settles we shall know that truth about the BNI and Nanfuri."
Capt. Asase-Gyimah made his first appearance at the NRC to respond to allegations of torture made against him by Ex-private Samuel Twumhene and corroborated by one Stanley Okyere, also an ex-soldier.
He was alleged to have ordered the late Flt. Lt. Kojo Lee and Flt. Lt. Fordjuor to torture Twumhene during an interrogation in February 1983, after an alleged coup plot against the PNDC.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah said from his intercourse with the BNI as national security coordinator he learnt that the BNI comprised honourable men and women, who had graduated with honours and were serious about life. They would therefore, not get involved in the kind of torture described by the various witnesses at the Commission over the past five weeks.
"I know that everything which happened in the BNI is normally recorded on paper, audio and video tapes, and I would advise that the Commission goes for the facts at the BNI before drawing their conclusions on the evidence given by witness.
"But I can say on authority that the BNI is not even a quarter of what people are painting it to be," he said. He, however, could not say the same for the Gondar Barracks at Burma Camp, where he admitted, torture, mayhem and molestation of suspects was rampant during the revolutionary days, between 1982 and 1983.
"I personally witnessed the molestation of the junior military men, who might have included Twumhene, by their colleagues at the Gondar Barracks after they were arrested at their coup plot base and I stopped the molestation," he said.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah, a lawyer by profession, advised the Commission to take evidence about issues of national security in camera, adding that such issues were sensitive and it was important that the national security machinery was protected from the tendencies of negative evidence.
He said BNI was the only protective machinery this nation had and it was imperative that its integrity was protected. Capt. Asase Gyimah, however, admitted that he did not have all the answers about the alleged nefarious activities of the BNI, saying that some personnel of the BNI subjected suspects to unofficial and unprofessional interrogations and he could not account for them.
Asked whether he was aware of late night interrogations and torture at the BNI, he said he himself was on two occasions, almost picked up by personnel from the BNI in the night. Based on that he could say there were some nocturnal activities by BNI personnel but he not could say those were official.
Almost every member of the Commission explained to Capt. Asase-Gyimah that the evidence before the Commission about the BNI and Nanfuri were given in writing by different persons, at different times and different locations ahead of the hearing and yet all of them pointed to the same issue of torture and late night interrogations.
He still insisted that the Commission would need to get the individual records of those who made the allegations from the BNI and find out from the records what actually happened at the BNI. Justice K. E. Amua-Sekyi told Capt. Asase-Gyimah that the Commission had thoroughly investigated the evidence at the BNI ahead of the hearing and therefore, had the kind of evidence Asase-Gyimah was talking about.
For the first time at the hearing, the Chairman asked a question when he asked Capt. Asase-Gyimah the disparity between the rule and practice regarding the molestation of junior military men by senior officers.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah said the rule debars officers from using their hands on the men. The NRC chairman referred him to a book titled "When the Gun Rules" saying in that book it was revealed that military officers used their hands on military men.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah kept alluding to the revolution as a reason why there was a breakdown of the rules and discipline in the military, which allowed certain wrong things to be done by military men at the time.
Earlier he was allowed to interrogate Twumhene and he sought to establish that he (Twumhene) was involved in a coup plot in the house of one Major Ackanson at Achimota on 26 February 1983, but Twunhene denied all his questions.
He alleged that Twumhene and about 15 others met in that house and one Lt. Abittoe furnished them with weapons, which Twumhene was involved in off-loading from a truck. He added that Twumhene personally requested that if the coup were successful, he would have liked the post of Army Commander.
Capt. Asase-Gyimah denied ever ordering anybody to torture Twumhene, saying he never interrogated anyone who was tortured in his presence or had been tortured earlier and looked obviously unfit to answer questions.
In response to a question as to whether he was aware that his name evokes negative feelings in people, he said that might be because he was disciplined and non-tolerant of crime of any nature and so people who had criminal intentions feared him.
