Cape Coast, March 2, GNA - Madam Sarah Appiah, a 70-year-old woman from Dunkwa on Tuesday told the NRC in Cape Coast, that one Sergeant Ewusi on three occasions during the December 31, Revolution at the Dunkwa market, sold her wares of plastic buckets, and some other items at the controlled price and pocketed the money.
She said she was in addition assaulted during which she was struck on the right eye and lost six teeth.
Witness said she had visited the Obuasi, Tarkwa and Takoradi hospitals for treatment, but to know avail and has as a result, lost one eye.
Another witness, Mr Hackman Kwadwo Boateng, a 56-year-old bailiff at the Cape Coast high court said "he had the greatest shock of his life", on February 19, 1982, when soldiers manhandled him whilst discharging his official duties, resulting in the deformity of his left hand and the loss of eight teeth.
Mr Boateng, who broke down in tears and had to be counselled several times, said he went to Siwidu, a suburb of Cape Coast with the court's registrar to effect an ejection order by the court against some tenants in a house of a deceased person for non-payment of rent.
He said when they got to the house they informed the affected tenants of their mission and thereupon started removing the keys to their rooms and in the process one of them rushed to call the soldiers.
He therefore suggested to the registrar to go and bring the police to give them protection, and whilst he was waiting, the soldiers appeared and ordered him to raise his hands, and he told them he was a bailiff and showed them his ID card.
Mr Boateng said the soldiers condemned the judicial service and ordered him to hand over the keys he had collected from the tenants but he told them he did not have the keys and they proceeded to search him. He said when one of them searched through his pockets and found the keys, he became so furious that he used the bayonet of his gun to inflict a deep cut on his left hand, while his two colleagues slapped and beat him with blood oozing from his nose and ears.
They then bundled him in their vehicle and took him to the regional administration where they were camped, together with the registrar.
He said about 400 metres away from their camp, they ordered them to alight and leapfrog to the place and assaulted them and later took them into a room and asked why they had gone to eject the tenants.
He said the soldiers apologised to them when they were told why they had gone to the house, but told them that it was against the policy of the government to eject tenants, and released them.
Witness who is still with the judicial service, said although he has applied to the Service for compensation, nothing has been done and appealed to the Commission to ensure that he is well compensated. Madam Philomena Quarm, a farmer at Mpohor in the Western Region said she was selling eggs in 1983 when soldiers stormed the market to sell the goods being sold there at controlled prices.
She said one of them whipped her with a metal rod resulting in the loss of three of her teeth, when the rod struck her on the mouth. She said the soldiers sold off all her 50 crates of eggs, which she had bought on credit from Kumasi.
Madam Quarm said she was hospitalised at the Effia-Kumah hospital for one week and appealed to the Commission to assist her to replace the teeth she lost since people "use it to insult her", and the chairman Mr Justice Amuah-Sekyi assured her of their assistance in that regard. Madam Sophia Boamah, Mr Kwesi Ocran, Mr Hackman Kwadwo Boateng and Mr John Amissah were the other petitioners who appeared at the Commission today.
