NRC continues public hearings of torture

Accra, Feb 4, GNA - Ex Private Class Three Paul King Asimeng formerly of the Ghana Armed Forces on Monday told the National Reconciliation Commission, sitting in Accra of his arrest, unlawful detention, torture and death threats in 1982 by operatives of the defunct Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) on suspicion of a coup plot to overthrow that government.

The ex-serviceman, who said he has six children with his wife and four other issues outside marriage, said his business as a supplier of electrical and general goods has not been good since 1992, and the education of his children suffered because of the brutalities meted out to him. Led in evidence by Mr Edmund Allotei Mingle, Mr Asimeng, who initially spoke in Twi but later changed to English during cross examination by the Commissioners told the Commission that he was arrested in 1982 at Kejetia on his return from Togo where he had been in exile, to organise a funeral for his late father.

Mr Asimeng said he entered the Army in 1963, went on voluntary retirement after 12 years of service, and travelled to Switzerland. He said the late Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, who had been the commanding officer of the Fifth Battalion, when he became Head of State invited him from Switzerland to work at the Ghana Trade Fair Authority a! s Senior Purchasing Officer of the National Co-operative Wholesale Union, with the task to check massive irregularities in the distribution of "essential commodities'' by supermarkets. Mr Asimeng said following the exit of the Acheampong regime and the arrival of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the then Chairman of the Council, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, made him the head of the UNIGOV Vehicle Retrieval Committee.

He said though he admitted that he knew where the vehicles were he did not have control over them. Mr Asimeng said he realised that the vehicles that were retrieved were being misused and made a report to Chairman Rawlings.

Mr. Asimeng said he realised later his life was in danger after the report and so he went into exile in Togo and Nigeria, where he was engaged in buying and selling of electrical goods on which he made a lot of returns. Ex-Private Asimeng who said he joined the Ghana Democratic Movement in 1987 in Germany to overthrow the government of the then Provisional National Defence Council, told the Commission that when in exile in Togo he lost his father and therefore came to Ghana. He said when he got to Nkawkaw, there was a crowd of passengers looking for a vehicle to travel to Kumasi, and he gave a lift to one old man.

He said when the old man got off at the Kejetia Market and was about to thank him, two soldiers, one Warrant Officer Teye Momo and another soldier asked him for a lift, but they would not accept his excuse that the car was full. They boarded the car and forced him to drive to the Fourth Battalion, and upon arrival, Teye Momo shouted, "We have got one of them."

He said Warrant Officer Momo forced open his brief case in which they found 28,500 dollars, 200,000 CFA, 8,000 Naira and also some cedis and assorted drinks as well as a pistol magazine with three bullets. Ex Private Asimeng said the place was infested with mosquitoes and the soldiers sprayed some insecticide he was having on him, he fell unconscious and realised he was in the guardroom when he came around. "Not quite long, Teye Momo and the other soldiers beat me up. They made me eat grass and forced me to drink my own urine before they would give me water to drink.

"They pushed me unto the wall and fired shots around my head, and asked me to tell the truth. The shots scared me."

Ex Private Asimeng said Teye Momo later went to his (Asimeng's) house near Tech Junction, and told his wife that, he, (Momo) was in Kumasi on operation duties with him and demanded that she should give him his pistol, but his wife said he had no pistol.

According to the ex-private, Momo and his men searched his wife's room and when they did not find any pistol they looted her pieces of cloth.

Ex Private Assuming said his detention was reported to Warrant Officer Frimpong, the Forces Sergeant Major, who later went to Kumasi and negotiated for his release.

He later found his car in a wreck in a sugar cane plantation with some fitters working on it.

Ex Private Asimeng said he later went into exile with his three-year-old son, and later joined the Ghana Democratic Movement, alongside Mr Joseph Henry Mensah, the Senior Minister.

Sitting continues.