Six Military Personnel from the Two Brigade Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) in Kumasi have been placed under close military custody for their involvement in meting out brutalities and inhuman treatment to a 21 -year old newspaper vendor, Anthony Hayford.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) Northern Command of GAF, Brigadier George Aryiku, who disclosed this at a press conference in Kumasi few days ago, did not give the names of the personnel for security reasons.
He however said the six would be make to face the full rigours of the law when found guilty if the findings of a Military Board of Inquiry charged to investigate the incident proves so.
The press conference was intended to clear portions of reports filed by this reporter and carried by this paper under the heading “Brutalised, Shaved and Dragged to Guardroom- a military man’s show of Might on a poor newspaper vendor” in its Tuesday, November 18, 2003 edition. In that story L/Cpl Awaadiok was quoted as saying “you claim your government has come.
Go and call Kufuor to come and save you. We can use only fifteen minutes to finish the Castle, you fools”.
After this publication, according to Brigadier Aryiku, a Military Board of Inquiry was immediately constituted to do an in-depth investigation into the nasty incident, which occurred on Thursday November 13th 2003.
He explained that after thorough investigations conducted by the Board of Inquiry into the incident, it has now been established that the nasty incident did occur but there was no evidence to corroborate the fact that the unfortunate comment attributed to Lance Corporal Awaadiok was ever made.
The Board also found to be true the fact that Hayford and his four other colleagues were arrested and sent to military guardroom where they were subjected to beating and other forms of inhuman treatment by a group of soldiers during which quite serious violations of his rights happened without the knowledge of the General Officer Commanding of the Northern Command.
Investigations also established that the boys were made to buy a Nokia phone for the Lance Corporal at the cost of ? 900,000 and not ?1,000,000 as reported earlier on.
The GOC also told the press that, the Board also established that the Lance Corporal Awaadiok also sustained degrees of injuries on his neck during the scuffle between him and Hayford as a result of which he lost his military ID card, watch, monies and the Nokia Phone.
It was established by the Board’s investigation, said Brig. Aryiku, that the incident happened over 100 metres away from the front of the Officers Mess opposite Kumasi Asante Kotoko F/C’s training grounds as reported by this reporter.
Throwing more light on the incident, Brigadier Aryiku explained that on that fateful day, at about 9:30 a.m.
L/Cpl Awaadiok was riding a bicycle in the said area and accidentally knocked down a young boy by name Antwi.
He said that when the Corporal knocked down the boy, Hayford and the other four boys rushed to the incident to beat the soldier, who was not in military uniform.
According to the GOC, L/Cpl Awaadiok managed to flee to the barracks and reported to his Duty Officer who ordered some soldiers to go and arrest the boys for questioning.
When the military personnel went and arrested the boys, they never sent them to the officer who sent them but rather threw them in military guardroom, molested them and gave Hayford an identification hair cut.
The Commanding Officer therefore described the actions by the soldiers as unwarranted and uncalled for and stated that the Northern Command will not countenance such actions at any given time.
He however appealed to the media to be very circumspect when reporting about security situations in order not to create tension between the civilian population and the military. He also urged the media to cross-check information from the military’s end so as to get factual and reliable information.
“Keep the military out of the political arena and keep politicians out of military,” Brig. Aryiku said He said that the money used to buy the phone for the L/Cpl Awaadiok should be refunded to whoever purchased the phone as sign of goodwill.
Had it not been the publication, how would the incident have come to your notice,” one Reporter asked and the GOC answered, “I commend the reporter for that but he should have been here personally to cross check from us about the unfortunate statement attributed to the Lance Corporal and I hope this thing will never happened again.
Let me assure you that our doors are always open to you; you can come here at any time to verify information bothering you,” he assured the media.
