Ghana Immigration Service Boss in Murder Frame Up

…As Alleged Victim Petitions Interior Minister for justice

There are emerging details to the effect that the Acting Director General of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Dr. Peter Wiredu, is behind attempts to frame up one of his trusted senior staff in a complicated murder case involving the death of a junior officer of the Immigration Service.

Spy News Agency has intercepted a strongly worded petition to Minister of Interior and copied to key stakeholders on security issues in the country in which the victim, Edward Kofi Owusu, is claiming innocence of the crime while alleging intimidation and harassment by his superiors. He claims his movements have been restricted and he is psychologically traumatized; reasons he want quick action which he is sure would prove his innocence. He has therefore called on the Minister order the immediate processing of the case so he can regain his freedom.

“Hon. Minister, the quest of my petition, is as follows: The over six-months-old allegation, is having very dire ramifications for me. It is restricting my movements and is psychologically affecting my person. I want to be charged at the law courts or be cleared of the charges so that I can regain my freedom.

“A cessation of the continuous harassments, especially at work. There should be a retraction of the story in the same medium of Daily Graphic and given the same prominence to the effect that I know nothing about the murder of Kofi Quist Defor.

An unqualified apology from the plotters. Any other reliefs that you may deem fit to restore my reputation and damaged image,” he stated in the petition.

It would be recalled that on December 30, 2013, one Kofi Quist Defor, a 36-year-old immigration officer, was shot and killed by unidentified persons at his residence at Mataheko in Tema. He was allegedly shot in his living room around 3 a.m.

About a week after the incidence, it was reported in the Daily Graphic that two officers of the Ghana Immigration Service were picked up in connection with the death of their colleague. Assistant Comptroller of Immigration (ACOI), Kofi Owusu, head of the Enforcement Unit at the Ministry of Interior and one Elvis Hesse of the Immigration Headquarters were interrogated by the police and detained overnight.

Documents in the possession of Spy News Agency - a Petition by one of the alleged victims calling on the Minister of interior to speedily cause investigation into what was described as “a highly and cruelly planned frame up”. Also attached to the petition is an “Appendix” detailing the chronology of events with provable evidence suggesting that Dr. Peter Wiredu plotted his behind his ordeal.

“I wish to petition your good office against a highly and cruelly planned frame up and plot to link me to the murder of a colleague immigration officer ICO Kofi Quist Defor and to investigate the role of the Acting Director of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) Dr. Peter Wiredu in the whole conspiracy.”

Spy news Agency gathered that the petition which was widely circulated since May 11, is yet to receive any attention or acknowledgement from the powers that be.

Those currently with copies of the petition include the Executive Secretary to the President, the National Security Co-ordinator, the Inspector General of Police (IGP); the Director General, Criminal Investigations Division (CID); Dr. Peter Wiredu, AG. Director of Immigration, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Immigration Service, as well as the Chairman of the Retired Immigration Officers’ Association.

The petitioner, Edward Kofi Owusu, is an Assistant Controller of Immigration, (ACOI), former Acting. Regional Commander for the Upper West Region, a former Chief Staff Officer (CSO) for the Immigration Service, a former Management member, Secretary to Management and the immediate past Head of Enforcement Unit, and now the 2IC of the same unit who is also currently a final year student of the GIMPA Law School. He is claiming innocent of the allegations. The petition contains some evidences and scenarios to suggest that his predicaments are being caused by his boss.

He claims the intimidation and harassment from Dr. Peter Owiredu is because of the simple suspicion that he was the one behind series of publications by unknown authors calling for the removal of the Ag. Director General. An allegation he insist in the petition that he knew nothing off.

Below are excerpts of the Petition:

Hon. Minister, even though I have been so much injured by the malicious publication and have enough evidence that the whole story was a frame up, maliciously calculated to destroy my reputation, future and set me against officers of the Service, relatives of the deceased and the discerning and good people of Ghana, I have decided to restrain myself for the investigations to continue. My conviction was that the truth – no matter how it is manipulated, will surely come out. My silence on the matter Sir, was to allow for an uninterrupted investigations to continue.

However, Hon Minister, even upon the reported arrest of the alleged murderer of ICO Kofi Quist Defor in the same Daily Graphic of 16th January, 2014 - only eight days after this shameful report was published to tarnish my hard won reputation in the Service, the Director is still relentless in pursuing me. As if to try and prove that I am a criminal and clear himself of what almost everybody knew in the Immigration Service, as a frame-up, he on the 22nd of April, 2014 ordered that I should be escorted to his office to answer a charge that I was alleged to have invited a Lebanese suspect to my house, harassed him and detained his passport illegally. The move, which turned out to be a faux pas, was yet another attempt to implicate me in an allegation that fell flat and turned out to be baseless and false. This is against the backdrop that since my release from detention on the 8th of January, 2014 the Director continued to avoid me and had neither spoken to me nor seen me.

Hon. Minister, it is so revealing that I DID NOT KNOW THE MURDERED OFFICER. NEITHER DO I REMEMBER EVER MEETING HIM IN MY LIFE. I am an Assistant Controller of Immigration (ACOI) (Superintendent as in Police) and he an Immigration Control Officer (ICO) (Corporal as in Police)! However, for very strange reasons I am being implicated just because the Ag, Director Dr. Peter Wiredu has held the view and some officers very close to him have confided in me that the Director suspects that I am among officers who are suspected of writing to the newspapers for his removal from office.

Hon. Minister, I dismissed the allegation as a wild joke because I did not do such a thing. I do not also know the authors of those articles.

No sooner had I received this news and in less than two weeks I was transferred from the position of Chief Staff Officer to the Enforcement Unit as the Third in Command (3 IC)!

…More to Come