Military clears ‘rowdy’ officers

The military has exonerated its personnel who assaulted journalists at the Independence Square in Accra during the Independence Day parade on March 6.

The report on the outcome of the Ghana Armed Forces’ investigations into the matter said the soldiers who manhandled photojournalists from the Ghanaian Times and Daily Graphic did no wrong.

“The outcome of investigation, diligently and dispassionately conducted, suggests no wrongdoing on the part of the soldiers as they acted within the rules and guidelines governing the activities at the time of the anniversary parade,” said Colonel M. Atintande, the Director of Public Relations of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) in a cover letter to the report addressed to The Ghanaian Times.

Vincent Dzatse, a Ghanaian Times photographer attached to the presidency, and Nii Martey Botwe, a photographer with the Daily Graphic were assaulted by military police personnel in the full glare of people during the Independence parade in Accra.

Photographs and video footage of the assault were publish and telecast, leading to calls by the affected media houses, the Ghana Journalists Association and other groups for independent investigations into the incident.

However the military in its investigations, which only had testimonies from the offending soldiers concluded that they only used “minimum force” to get Mr Dzatse out of the parade grounds for not conforming to the rules.

The military insisted he was neither beaten nor slapped as the media reports claimed.