Rawlings Faces Heckling in UK

Group on Human Rights in the UK, Lord Avebury, has fired off letters to two key Ministers in the British Government, Ms. Baraba Roche, Home Office Minister and Mr. Peter Hain, Foreign Office Minister who recently visited Ghana, informing them of the case involving the abuse and subsequent imprisonment of the Djentuhs by Mrs. Anderson Yeboah, Chairman of an Accra circuit tribunal.

The judgement and the incident leading to it have rolled back the solid international goodwill that the Government had in the eyes of the international establishment.

One of the top six largest newspapers, The Independent, owned in part by Irish business mogul Mr. Tony Oreilly, a friend of President who was offered, but subsequently rejected an offer to buy the rump of a Tomota factory in the North, broke the news in yesterday's edition which also mentioned that the President is due in UK on Sunday.

A private radio station in London also hyped up the report at 8.00 pm on Sunday and followed up with telephone calls to Ghana to interview two journalists familiar with the case, Messrs Kofi Coomson and Kweku Baako.

Chronicle learns that Human Rights Groups are being mobilised to target President Rawlings and his wife for heckling and demonstrations over the affair.

They are due to visit the Millenium Dome and spend a day at Balmoral Castle, one of the official residence of the Queen before going to Scotland for honorary doctorate degrees that the Ambassador, Mr. Aggrey Orleans, has organised with some local Universities in consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Independent story was written by their Parliamentary Correspondent Fran Abrams and repeated a mistake made by Mr. Sellasie Djentuh in his application for asylum - that 35 of her mother's buildings were destroyed. They were far less than that. It read:

Asylum-seeker claims Ghana President led harassment campaign 4 September 2000

The former fiance of the Ghanaian President's daughter is seeking asylum in Britain, alleging that he was subjected to an extraordinary campaign of harassment when his engagement ended. Human rights campaigners will press ministers to raise the case with President Jerry Rawlings, who visits Britain this week.

Amnesty International has backed Selasse O'Sullivan Djentuh, who says he was abducted and beaten by presidential guards after ending a two-year relationship with Mr. Rawlings' daughter, Zanetor.

The guards shaved Mr. O'Sullivan Djentuh's head with a broken bottle and told him the President had ordered them to kill him and dump his body in the sea, he said in his application for asylum in Britain.

Mr. O'Sullivan Djentuh's parents were arrested when they tried to find him, and last week were both given suspended prison sentences for assaulting a guard. His mother says two of Mr. Rawlings' bodyguards held a gun to her chest and told her that both she and her son would vanish. Two months before the abduction, the 23-year-old was knocked off his motorbike by a truck and seriously injured.

His mother was warned by police not to pursue inquiries about the truck driver's identity. Although the driver had pulled out across his path after signalling him to pass, Mr. O'Sullivan Djentuh was convicted and fined for traffic offences relating to the incident.