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Police Intelligent and Professional Standard Bureau is investigating a police officer who assaulted a 38-year-old labourer for allegedly stealing a pistol.
Armoury Instructor at Police Training School, Corporal Padmore Dankwa, and four others brutalized and dumped in cells Akwasi Addai over the missing gun
They later took him to a fetish priestess and Muslim spiritualist both of whom used rituals to further incriminate the suspect who was also denied medical attention.
A similar incident in which a driver was beaten up and detained by Community Police Assistants has also been reported to police administration.
Corporal Dankwa and five unidentified persons stormed Mr. Addai’s Dwumanafo residence in Kwabre Municipality, in search of his pistol allegedly stolen from his car.
The policeman had parked the vehicle by the roadside at about 4 a.m. in order to attend to nature’s call in the bush.
Father of three, Mr. Addai, says the policeman and his civilian accomplices assaulted and dragged him on the ground despite denying knowledge of the missing gun.
He says they bundled him into a vehicle, continued beating him, took him to a Muslim spiritualist at Aboaso and later to a fetish priestess at Dwumanafo.
The Muslim spiritualist claimed the suspect took the gun, directed Corporal Dankwa to a spot to retrieve it but they never found it.
Mr Addai was later detained at Mampongteng police cells for several hours without medical attention.
” One of the stoutly-built men who held my waist hit my mouth while another slapped me . One of them, identified as Blackman hit my side with a wooden slab until I became weak. They even threatened residents who wanted to come to my rescue. I was handcuffed and taken to a fetish priestess who chanted and threw a dove at an alligator in a stream to eat supposedly to confirm my guilt,” he narrated.
Mr. Addai has been left with walking and hearing difficulties, and is unable to urinate normally.
It took intervention of PIPS officials to get him medical attention.
” I feel pain all over my jaws. I can’t chew anything. My waist, my eyes-I can’t see properly. I cannot walk.”
Both the ‘Mallam’, Alhaji Mohammed Danso, and the fetish priestess, Nana Adwoa, have confirmed the story.
” A policeman brought a man he accuses of stealing his gun to me. I told him he cannot accuse someone without proper investigations.
He mentioned a number suspects out of which the real culprit was detected here. I told the policeman to seek further proof elsewhere
He told me a fetish priestess at Adwumakaase confirmed my earlier revelation,” says Alhaji Danso.
On her part, the Fetish Priestess, Nana Adwoa who claims to have used the method of an alligator eating a life dove thrown at it to catch real culprits in robbery says she trust that method.
According to her, she has been waiting for a sign from the gods after Mr. Akwasi Addai denied the accusation.
She insists the gods have never failed her using the alligator-dove approach.
” This is not the first time. I have done it before; they[ gods] asked me to do that if I need something from them”.
Nhyira News checks revealed Corporal Dankwa was not authorized to possess the gun at the time of the incident.
Tafo-Pankrono Divisional Commander, Chief Supt K.A Arhin has ordered arrest of the spiritualists and the other accomplices while PIPS investigate the policeman.
In a related development, driver, Kwaku Boakye , was allegedly assaulted by Community Police Assistants at Hwediem for alleged driving uninsured vehicle.
He was left with a deep cut on the forehead after allegedly being head-butted by the assailants.
Doctors at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital say the victim has been left with vision difficulties as a result.
