NRC promises to help witness retrieve seized property

The National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) on Thursday said they would do all in their power to help a witness retrieve a house, plots of land and a car confiscated by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).

Giving evidence to the NRC on Thursday, Mrs Victoria Anorkor Lartey said she and her late husband Mr. Seth Lartey, a soldier, were victims of activities of soldiers under the PNDC as a result of which her husband died.

She said her husband, who was with the Field Engineer Regiment was arrested and detained for five months.

He was sent from Gondar Barracks to James Fort and Nsawam prisons following allegations that he had stolen 20 million cedis.

She said Mr Lartey who retired in 1977 started work again in 1984 with the ex-servicemen's National Task Force at the Trade Fair Site when they formed a brigade for communal activities.

Mrs Lartey said in 1985 she was told that her husband had been arrested and taken to the Gondar Barracks, adding that when she visited him he could not explain why he was arrested.

She said her husband's eyes were bloodshot and his face swollen whilst his hair had been shaved with bloodstains all over his head.

She said her husband and three others were taken to a border and asked to leave the country but he refused saying he could not leave his wife and children.

He said he was then tried in December 1986, after his arrest in 1985 with the charge that he had defrauded the state of 1.4 million cedis and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

While in prison, he fell sick and was admitted at the Medical Block of the Korle bu Teaching Hospital where he died.

Mrs Lartey said when her husband was in detention, she could not cater for the children alone and she left for Amasaman to work. She said they rented out the house but soldiers ejected the tenants and took it over. They later sold it the Ghana Institute of Journalism.

The soldiers also took their car and sold their plots of land near the house.

Mrs Lartey said she petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Legal Aid but to no avail. She pleaded with the NRC to help her retrieve her property.