Mike Adjei, a writer and journalist, on Tuesday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) that soldiers arrested him in 1983 shortly after he had written an article on the then Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.
He said he was picked up in the house of Goody Okang, a military officer and cousin of the Rev Charles Palmer-Buckle, a member of the Commission. Adjei said he was then working as a Public Relations Officer with Ghana Oil Company and contributing articles to the Free Press newspaper.
He said his arrest came not long after an article, "A chat with Rawlings", which, he said, went down well with the people. Adjei, who is now in the Office of the President, said when he asked for a search warrant, one Lieutenant Kusi who led the soldiers replied that they did "not want any nonsense" from him.
Adjei, who was also former personal secretary of the late Victor Owusu, leader of the Popular Front Party, said Lt. Kusi, stood at the door, while the soldiers numbering eight searched his room. He said the soldiers only found an empty file belonging to Prof. Folson, then of the All African Peoples Alliance.
After the search, the soldiers drove him towards Burma Camp. At Congo Junction, Lt Kusi asked to see "Broni" who he (Adjei) later identified to be Captain Pattington.
He said after about an hour, Lt Kusi came back and they continued to the Officers' Operation Room, the Police Information Room and then to the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI). At the BNI, he got to know from one of the detectives that W. O. Adjei Boadi, member of the erstwhile PNDC, had ordered for six men in detention at the Border Guards Headquarters and executed them.
Adjei said he was detained in the BNI headquarters for three weeks during which Johnny Dzandu, one of the killers of the judges, was brought there on a stretcher.
He said he was detained for 13 months without charge. Commissioner Bishop Palmer-Buckle said he would see his cousin, Okang to learn more about the relationship between the two of them. Adjei said the PNDC and NDC governments were generally made of authoritarian personalities.
Adjei said Johnny Terkpor, another soldier who killed the judges, was brought into his cell but he objected and insisted that Terkpor should join Dzandu in his cell. Adjei said two brothers - Ofei and Obeng - were brought for their alleged involvement in a coup plot.
Obeng was picked one night and tortured and was barely recognised when he was brought back as his face and body were badly swollen. He added that from then on beating of the two brothers became a regular feature. According to Adjei, he was interrogated by Capt. Kojo Tsikata and Peter Nanfuri and sent to jail in Nsawam Prisons where he met political detainees such as Dr J.W. de Graft Johnson, former Vice President, the late Tommy Thompson, a newspaper proprietor and the late John Kugblenu, a journalist.
He said on one occasion when he was brought to Korle Bu Hospital for medication, he met Ray Kakraba-Quarshie, a lawyer, who told him the political detainees had been expected in court the previous week, since a group of lawyers had filed a habeas corpus for them.
According to Adjei, he struck close friendship with Dzandu, who told him that Amedeka was the leader of the death squad and he (Dzandu) was the murderer of Yeye Boy. Dzandu, he said, also told him that Amedeka could kill anyone who refused his orders and added that on one occasion, he instructed him to kill Togbe Adeladza, but later asked him not to and he rather flogged him.
Adjei said he was released after 13 months incarceration, but ended in the Gondar Barracks, where he spent additional 12 days before he and a group of detainees were finally released. He said each of them was asked to pay 70 cedis for staying in the Guardroom for the 12 days.
He said months after his release he was invited again by the BNI and Nafuri asked him to write a statement on his 13-months incarceration.
David Tawiah Welbeck, a former military intelligence officer, said he was wrongly arrested on 7 January 1982 at the Shell filling Station at Osu RE when he went to buy spare parts.
He said he was sent to the Recce Guardroom, the Air Force Guardroom and to a counter where he was asked to undress. He said Lance Corporal Amedeka came and took him to the Cook House, gave him food and later sent him back to the Guardroom.
Welbeck said he, along with others, were made to sleep on the bare floor. He narrated how one junior officer shot at the chest and then the forehead of one of the detainees and he was made to carry the dead body into a waiting ambulance.
He said when he was finally released, he went to greet the Shell Manager, but learned that he was dead. Isaac Tetteh Quarcoo, who walked with some difficulty, said he was picked in February 1981 at Avenor by Policemen, forced into a Police vehicle and taken to the Kaneshie Police Station.
Quarcoo said he had become incapacitated because the Police shot at his leg. He said he could no longer pay his medical bills and prayed the Commission for rehabilitation. William Bruce-Tagoe, a Restaurant Operator, shed a lot of tears during his narration.
He said soldiers on two occasions came to his restaurant and after helping themselves, accused him of pricing his food too high, arrested him on one occasion took him to the Five BN and manhandled him. They slapped him, and made him to roll on the ground.
On another occasion, they blindfolded him and took him to a place where they used the tip of their guns to hit his chest. Bruce-Tagoe, who also operated a film theatre, spoke of being picked by the officers of the Accra Metropolitan Authority on the order of the then Mayor, Enoch Teye Mensah.
He said he was made to clear a refuse dump, after which he could not eat for a number of days. Ishmael Boamah Sasu-Mensah spoke of the loss of drugs in his pharmacy at Tesano valued then at ?3.6m, when a group of students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology ransacked it in 1982.
He said he complained to then Registrar of the Pharmacy Board, Corquaye, but it was to no avail.
