"We will re-open murdered Judges and Kume Preko cases" - AG

It is now certain that the cases involving the killing of some civilians during the "Kume Preko" demonstrations by alleged pro-government functionaries in 1995 and the murder of the three High Court Judges and a retired Army Officer, during the PNDC era in the early eighties, will soon be re-opened.

An application for the publication of the findings into the Kume Preko demonstrations is currently being studied by the Attorney General's Department and will soon be published.

Although committees of enquiry were instituted to investigate the circumstances surrounding the two cases, many Ghanaians have found their findings inconclusive. As a result, over the years, speculations on the cases have resurfaced and calls repeatedly made for investigations to be re-opened.

In an interview with the Network Herald, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Nana Akufo-Addo, said he had called several times for the authorities to publish the findings of the Committee of Enquiry, tasked to investigate the killing of innocent civilians during the Kume Preko demonstrations.

Nana Akufo-Addo was then spokesman for Alliance For Change, the pressure group which organized the demonstrations to protest the introduction of a fifteen per cent Value Added Tax on goods and services. "The killings occurred when Ghanaian citizens were exercising their right to demonstrate, a constitutionally protected right, and nothing had been done about it," he added.

When pressed to give a definite time when the further investigations will be initiated into the Kume Preko case, the Minister said, "I am yet to see the report. Let us publish the report first and see whether there is a basis for further investigations to be conducted into the case. Whatever be the case, we should do it in a transparent manner and within the due processes of the law. That is our concern."

With regard to the case involving the murder of three High Court Judges and a retired military officer in 1982, for which Mr. Amartey-Kwei, a member of the then ruling Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) was executed, Nana Akufo-Addo said that case would be looked into as well.

"That is another matter which petitions are being made about. We are going to study them. I, myself, believe that this is something, which ought to be reopened because it appears to be a common perception that the full story has not been told. The full story ought to be told," added the Minister.

An assistant to the Minister for Media Relations, Kwabena Agyapong, who is the son of one of the murdered Judges, had over the years repeated calls for investigations to be re-opened into the case, although the previous NDC government felt there was no use re-investigating the issue.