*Years After Leaving Ya-Na, Roko Frimpong, BoG Security Head, *
*CDS Bodyguard Murders,Serial Killings, MV Benjamin Cocaine Loss Unresolved*
By Larry-Alans Dogbey
The ex-Director of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), who left
the shores of Ghana to work with the International Police Organization
(Interpol) headquarters in France under some very interesting circumstances,
is in town. Insiders say he is back trying to work his way into Ghana Police
Service uniform.
Mr. David Asante-Apeatu was caught by The Herald’s undercover agents in the
wee hours of last week Friday at the Alisa Hotel at North Ridge, Accra, in
the company of a friend.
The two, who had stayed late in the luxurious hotel, left in a
silver-coloured Octavia vehicle. Hotel sources reveal that the ex-CID boss
is a regular visitor to the hotel.
He left Ghana to Interpol headquarters under strange circumstances said to
have been hugely engineered by the ex-IGP, Patrick Kwarteng Acheampong, who
was said to be afraid that Mr. Asante-Apeatu who had become so popular
within the NPP circles, was going to replace him as IGP. Mr. Acheampong was
linked to Issah Abbas, one of the three persons arrested with Kwabena
Amaning alias Tagor at the MV Benjamin Cocaine disappearance probe.
There are reports at the Police Headquarters that Mr. Asante-Apeatu felt
unsafe and had to flee the shores of Ghana to join Interpol at a time when
his services were not needed. Interpol is said to have pointed out at the
time that it was not in a position pay him a US$30,000 monthly salary. For
this reason, the government of Ghana had to cough up the said amount each
month, just to keep him in France.
Mr. Asante-Apeatu has been involved in some of high-profile crimes as lead
investigator, but the cases are still unresolved after many years.
They include the murder of the Overlord of Dagbon Traditional Area, Ya- Na
YakubuAndani II, the serial killings of 34 Ghanaian women, the murder of the
bodyguard of the ex-Chief of Defense Staff in Burma Camp, Accra, and the
disappearance of 77 parcels of cocaine from the shipping vessel MV Benjamin
at the Tema Habour.
Also on the long list of the unresolved cases are the murder of the
ex-Deputy Managing Director of the Ghana Commercial Bank, Mr. RokoFrimpong
and the then Head of Security at the Bank of Ghana, DSP Stephen Arizona
Donkor. The two were separately murdered in cold blood by armed men who did
not fetch a pin from their houses.
A ballistic expert with a degree in Chemistry from the Soviet Union, Mr.
Asante-Apeatu took part in some of these investigations when he was not a
senior officer, yet he was promoted over others to be CID boss.
Ya- Na Murder
In the case of the Ya-Na, shortly after the gruesome murder of the respected
traditional head, the ex-CID boss, then a Chief Superintendent, was sent to
Yendi in the Northern Region to investigate claims that sophisticated
weapons were used by the gunmen who stormed the Gbewaa Palace and beheaded
the chief.
Reports were that some of the gunmen were mercenaries hired from Liberia by
Major (rtd) Sulemana Abubakari who was also working with Ghana’s National
Security outfit.
Mr. Asante-Apeatu is captured in the Wuako Commission Report, confirming
that indeed, powerful weapons were used in the attack on the Gbewaa Palace.
When he became CID boss, no new person was arrested over the crime apart
from those identified by Wuoko Commission, although several Ministers of the
Interior, including Hackman Owusu Agyemang, Papa Owusu Ankomah, Albert
Kan-Dapaah and Dr. Kwame Addo Kufuor who served in the Kufuor regime, kept
telling the public that the police were making inroads and were in the
process of effecting arrest.
Serial Killings
The ex-CID boss, as a Police Superintendent, led the investigations into the
heinous murder of some 34 Ghanaian women in what became known as the Accra
Serial Killings. He was then at the Police Forensic Laboratory in Accra.
The only suspect, Mr. Charles Quansah, who was arrested and sentenced to
death by hanging, has denied his involvement in the killings, and insists
that he is a victim of judicial chicanery perpetrated by the Police, a
malleable Justice Agnes Dodzie, and a gullible Ghanaian media.
Charles Quansah mentions that Mr. Asante-Apeatu, Hanson Gove and one
Inspector Onipa, as having subjected him to hours of torture by electric
shocks and hot iron to falsely admit killing the 34 women.
In defense, David Asante -Apeatu rather blew sums of the taxpayers’ money to
put up a fake video documentary on the serial killings which was leaked to
the Daily Guide newspaper and serialized as news articles. Charles Quansah’s
role in the video was acted by someone although the ex-CID boss had claimed
that the killer had confessed to the killings.
Meanwhile, Mr. Joseph O. Amui, Quansah’s lawyer, has long told this reporter
that his client does not have the capacity to single-handedly kill a goat
let alone human beings and scatter them in the Accra metropolis as happened
at the time.
Bodyguard of CDS
Staff Sergeant Kyere, a bodyguard of the Chief of Defense Staff, Lt-General
J .B. Danquah, was shockingly found dead with a gaping bullet wound behind
his head with pistol by his side.
None other than CID boss Asante-Apeatu was personally called in to
investigate the matter, and within days, the death, mostly held in Burma
Camp to be an assassination, was declared a mere suicide, a claim which has
since been disputed.
With a change of government in 2009, the National Security, under Larry
Gbevlo-Lartey and the National Security Adviser, Gen. Joseph Nunoo-Mensah,
started probing the death, and even halted Staff Sergeant Kyere’s burial but
something fruitful is yet to come out.
MV Benjamin
77 parcels of cocaine were smuggled into Ghana on a shipping vessel called
MV Bejamin. The huge quantities of drugs disappeared into thin air, and till
date, nobody knows where the drugs went.
Two persons who were arrested and convicted, were later set free as the
basis upon which they were convicted – a tape recording- was described as
flawed by the Court of Appeal, and till date, the whereabouts of the cocaine
is still on the lips of the public.
The Murders of RokoFrimpong and the Chief Security of the Bank of Ghana
Most people, including family members, have attributed these two murders to
assassins with claims that the two were privy to some damning information
during the re-denomination exercise (the conversion of the old cedi to the
new Ghana cedi).
RokoFrimpong and DSP Stephen Arizona Donkor were killed in their homes by
armed gangs. The gangs stormed their (victims) homes in Tema and Gbawe
respectively, and pumped several rounds of bullets into them and only took
their mobile phones away. Many rewards announced by the police for anybody
with information on the murders, did not bear any fruit.
Indeed, it was during the tenure of Mr. Asante-Apeatu as CID boss, that the
famous expression “Contract Killings” emerged in Ghanaian Politics. It is
not yet clear whether he played any role in the investigation of the murder
of AlhajiIssaMobila who was killed in the Military Barracks at Tamale after
the 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections.
