Kotobabi Cop kills boy, 18 – Father seeks justice

Hakeem Abubakar, 18, was reportedly shot dead by a certain policeman simply identified as Evans near the Accra Girls Senior High School on Friday, 8th August 2014.

According to the deceased’s father, Abubakar Saluhu, who has since petitioned the Director-General of the Police Intelligence & Professional Standards Bureau through his lawyers, Hanson Law Consult, in the night of the incident, his son and a friend, Hamza, were riding a motorcycle around the Kawokudi junction near the Accra Girls Senior High School.

Continuing, he said that the riders were arrested by a police patrol team after a warning shot.

The boys were asked to lie down and as they did so, they were assaulted and in the process Hakeem Abubakar was shot when he was lying down, he said.

They were said to have showed no resistance to the police whatsoever, but Hakeem was shot in cold blood.

The other boy, Hamza, was put into the patrol vehicle with the motorcycle and driven to the Kotobabi Police Station and is still in detention.

It said the following day, Saturday, while the father was looking for his son, he spotted the motorcycle at the Kotobabi Police Station and upon enquiries he was told by the Police that the boys had snatched a lady’s bag but one of them ran away and that Hamza was the only one arrested.

The father said when he spoke to Hamza, he informed him that Hakeem was shot and directed him to the spot where the incident took place.

The deceased’s father went to the spot with his other son, and they saw blood stains on the grass where he was shot but did not see the body of Hakeem, which was later traced to the Police Hospital mortuary the following Monday.

When the father got to the mortuary, an attendant informed him that the body was brought there on the night of Friday 8th August 2014 by one Police Inspector Baidoo, whose mobile phone number was 0249****22.

The suspected patrol vehicle used by the cops is registered GP 3656, and the investigator of the case is called Dan of the Kotobabi Police Station.

The deceased, although his father was told he had ran away, died after being shot by the policeman and subsequently identified at the mortuary.

The inconsistency has triggered the question as to why the policeman lied that the deceased had ran away when, in fact, his remains was left at the spot where he died.

The father, in his petition, is demanding that PIPS “as a matter of urgency investigate the death of Hakeem Abubakar and to particularly visit the scene of the incident and see the blood stains on the grass and flowers.”