A month after Ghana's worst football tragedy, investigations are focussing on the role of police in the deaths of at least 126 people and the almost total lack of medical facilities at the stadium.
The May 9 disaster at Accra Sports Stadium, Africa's worst sporting tragedy, was blamed on police over-reaction to rioting fans who went on the rampage after a key match between two traditional rival clubs.
Police fired round after round of teargas, trapping panicked spectators in the 30,000-capacity stadium which has huge iron grills separating the stands from the pitch, sparking a giant stampede.
The incident occurred after a league match between the Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko clubs.
President John Kufuor immediately instituted a commission of enquiry into the disaster and warned that anybody found guilty would be punished.
The probe body, which had been due to finish its investigations by mid-June, will now extend it by about 10 days, according to sources. One of its main tasks is to establish who gave the order to fire tear gas.
The commission has already examined the effects of such a move by firing tear gas shells in the stadium in tests.
More damning has been the criticism from government doctors that the virtually non-existent medical facilities at Accra Sports Stadium contributed to the huge toll.
Colonel Mantey Wadahani, a pathologist at the Accra Military Hospital -- where most of the victims were admitted -- told the enquiry commission that the absence of resuscitating services at the Accra Sports Stadium contributed greatly to the high toll.
He told the commission that "looking at the pathological changes of the patients I examined, if there had been resuscitating services at the scene, a larger number of them could have been saved".
According to Wadahani, post mortems carried out on 106 victims at the hospital revealed that 97 died of traumatic asphyxia (suffocation or deprivation of air) while the others died of head or chest injuries or other reasons.
The commission has also been investigating the pitiful emergency provisions at the stadium. The medical team on duty had only one ambulance which could handle just one person at a time.
Ghanaians have also been appalled by the narrowness of the stadium exits and the fact that the two main gates leading to the stands were locked even when the match had ended.
There were only two two-metre (6.6-feet) wide side gates serving as exit points.
The commission also found that the stadium was poorly illuminated.
The fatal match ended late in the evening.
The situation was exacerbated by widespread reports of thieving at the stadium.
Bennard, a third year university student told AFP: "as about 10 dead bodies lay on top of me, I decided to stop shouting and conserve the little energy left in me.
"Some other fans came round and started removing the shoes of the dead, watches and searching through their pockets. My own shoes were removed."
Media reports also quoted a survivor who was taken for dead and sent to the mortuary at Ridge Hospital in Accra on May 9 but woke up at midnight in the mortuary and a took a car straight home.
Officials said the vast majority of victim's families had claimed compensation of 2.5 million cedis (330 dollars), promised by the government towards funeral expenses.
