‘Ken should have been kept at the CID headquarters and not a prison’

Member of Parliament for Asuogyaman Kofi Osei-Ameyaw has expressed bewilderment at treatment being handed the Managing Editor of the Daily Searchlight, Ken Kuranchie, who is serving a 10-day jail term, saying his offence does not warrant being kept in a prison.

“Some offences are low…and should not warrant prison,” he said.

“[Ken Kuranchie] should have been kept at the CID headquarters,” he suggested.

He noted that transfer of the editor without the knowledge of his family raises concerns.

“Why would you in the middle of the night transport a prisoner?” Mr Osei-Ameyaw questioned.

“It is unfair and unreasonable,” he stressed.

State institutions acting like armed robbers

A Senior Lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Opoku Agyemang, was particularly concerned about the arbitrary transfer of Mr Kuranchie, cautioning state institutions not to act beyond their mandates.

He likened the manner in which Mr Kuranchie is being transferred from one prison to the other to an armed robber attacking their victim in the middle of the night.

"Some state institutions are exercising powers that can be likened to armed robbers," Mr Opoku Agyemang said.

He explained that it was wrong for prison officers to move Mr Kuranchie at odd hours since it tramples upon his basic rights as a person.

He noted that though the prison officers had power to put a prisoner in any prison they deem fit, it is important, he cautioned, that it is done during the day.

The two were speaking on TV3’s weekend news analysis programme Headlines on Saturday, July 6, 2013.

Meanwhile, some journalists representing the Volta Region branch of the Ghana Journalists Association were turned away by prison officials on Saturday when they went to the Ho Central Prisons to visit the incarcerated editor of the Daily Searchlight.

The prison officials disclosed to the journalists that their colleague had been transferred to an unknown location.