Nahiniso ritual killings: Police struggling to gather evidence

Police detectives say they are having a difficult time in gathering evidence against the two men accused of being behind the alleged ritual murders at Nahiniso near Sewua in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti Region.

The two men, Nana Kwabena Acheampong, 48, and Walters Ayamfo, 30, suspected by the residents to be ritual killers, were rescued by the Police Thursday from being lynched on claims they attempted dragging a girl to an uncompleted building, apparently for rituals.

Reports say the two men were severely beaten to the extent that one had one arm almost severed off. The residents set fire into a Nissan Pathfinder belonging to the two men, and a shrine said to be where the two operate.

But detectives who showed up at the scene Friday morning to gather evidence for investigation to establish a case against the two who are currently under arrest, told TV3 that it was difficult getting evidence to link the two to the alleged ritual killings.

That, they explained was because the angry mob has burned most of the items that the Police would have gathered as evidence at the shrine. Public Relations Officer of the Ashanti Regional Police, ASP Mohammed Yusif Tanko told TV3, "This will hamper investigation. I must be honest with you...but we will still use the few we have to establish the facts of the matter".

Meanwhile, the detectives from the Ashanti Regional Police Command have managed to retrieve some evidence from the shrine. The items included talisma, pots, calabash stained with blood, bloodstained polo shirts of a minor.

The exhibits would be taken to the Police forensic lab to establish whether the blood is human blood.

An eyewitness told TV3 that both Sewuah and Nahiniso have lately been experiencing mysterious disappearance and killings of children and teenagers.

They said a 17-year-old girl from Sewuah was murdered and some of her body parts were removed.

"We saw this girl lying in the cemetery with her private part cutoff..she also had her breast dismembered. Our information revealed that the girl was seen with the man a day before her death," an eyewitness told TV3 on condition of anonymity.

The Asokwa District Police confirmed the incident and gave the name of the teenager as Adwoa Mansa.