No answers for Ghanaian fishery observer’s family months after suspected death

The brother of a Ghanaian fisheries observer, who went missing from his assigned vessel last October, has stated that the family has received no information from the authorities investigating the case.

Yohane Abayateye informed Mongabay that the family is now considering legal action to compel the Ghana Police Service to release the findings of its investigation, particularly the DNA test results that could confirm the identity of a headless body that washed ashore in December.

Samuel Abayateye, a 38-year-old father of two, was assigned to the Marine 707, a Ghana-flagged pole-and-line tuna-fishing vessel owned and operated by World Marine Company Ltd.

The company, based in the fishing port of Tema, has stated it has 50% South Korean and 50% Ghanaian ownership. The company reported Abayateye missing from the vessel on October 30, 2023. A body, missing its head, forearms, and feet — which the family says closely resembled Abayateye — washed ashore nearly six weeks later, prompting the police to open an investigation.

A week after the body was found, the police requested Abayateye’s 100-year-old mother to assist in a DNA test to confirm its identity, which she did, according to Yohane Abayateye. However, the family's attempts to obtain the DNA test results from the Ghana Police Service have been futile, Yohane told Mongabay.

“We are therefore left with no other choice than to seek the services of a lawyer to file a suit against the Ghana Police Service to compel them to release the results of the DNA test because we strongly believe the decapitated body discovered at the seashore was that of my brother, Samuel,” Yohane said.

Yohane, along with a friend, discovered the body on Saturday, December 9, 2023, on the shore of a lagoon in the village of Anyamam, where the family resides. He claimed he was able to identify his brother by the shirt he was wearing and a distinctive mark on his chest.

“So, he is the one, and we need his body from the police for burial,” Yohane stated.

When Mongabay contacted the Ghana Police Service’s Tema Regional Police Command for an update on the case, a communications officer declined to comment, stating the case is still under investigation and the agency would communicate about it at the appropriate time.

Upon learning about Samuel's case and the Ghana Police Service's reluctance to release the DNA report to the family, Joseph Kwarteng, a technician at a private laboratory in Accra, expressed surprise. “Gone are the days when DNA tests carried out in Ghana took a long time. There are now ultra-modern DNA test machines in the country that could produce results in less than a week,” he said.

“If, after three months, the police are still withholding the DNA test results, then it is not the unavailability of the result that is preventing them from updating the family but something else, which is not related to DNA,” Kwarteng said.



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