Police Grabs Ashaiman Woman & Adom FM Boy

The producer of Adom FM’s mid-morning programme, Mr. Bill Gbogli, popularly known as Papa Bills, last Saturday spent hours under interrogation at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters after he was picked up by senior police officers together with Amina Mohammed, the lady behind the highway mass rape story, which is turning out to be a hoax.

Klaus Von Backustine, Chief Operations Officer for Adom FM and Asempa FM, who was at CID headquarters to lend support to his subordinates, told The Herald that a Police caution statement was taken from Mr. Gbogli and he was released on bail.

Amina Mohammed, said to be a resident of Ashaiman, took her turn with the senior police officers.

At the time of going to press, The Herald picked conflicting reports that both the Tamale-bound bus driver and Amina Mohamed’s mother who was also spared the rape bout for being “a bad luck”, were also at the CID Headquarters to be interrogated.

Amina claimed that she and her mother were the only women on the bus who were not raped.

This, she claimed, was because she was hahing her menstrual period , which is considered a bad luck, and with this the highway robbers spared her and her mother with whom she was traveling to Tamale for her father ‘s funeral.

The Herald called Mr. Gbogli, but he said he was not in the mod to make any comment. Indeed, he sounded quite devastated on the phone. “Charley, I am not fine,” was all he could utter from a very shaky voice, and hanged up his phone.

Two senior police officers who identified themselves as Andrew Darko and James Taylor were to have stormed the Tema Community Two office of the FM station to pick up Mr. Gbogli the producer of mid-morning programme, Work and Happiness, on which the mass rape story was broken on Wednesday, October 27.

It is not clear how Amina Mohammed was also picked up by the police for questioning. It is also unclear when Mr. Gbogli will be reporting back to the CID headquarters for further questioning, and if he will be charged together with Amina Mohammed at all, and what the charge is likely to be. But the law of “causing fear and panic” looks most probable in this case.

Meanwhile, The Herald called the Deputy News Editor of Adom, Afia Pokua, who insisted that the station stands by the report, and claimed that the victims are staying away because the police have threatened them, especially Amina Mohammed, the one who broke the news.

She explained that the rape victims, amongst themselves, decided to keep the mass rape aspect of their ordeal a top secret and rather report on the robbery because it is a huge embarrassment, particularly for the father who was ordered to rape his 14-year-old daughter.

She said it was only Amina, who did not heed to the advice not to disclose the rape aspect of the incident. Miss. Pokua told The Herald that the Adom FM has since spoken to the mother of Anima, who confirmed that, indeed, the mass rape took place but the case was reported to the police as a mere robbery case.

Ms. Pokua was, however, unsure which Police station the case was reported to. Although she promised to forward a recorded conversation with Amina’s mother to The Herald, it never came as at the time of going to press.

Amina Mohammed, had claimed on Adom FM that the gang forced a man to break her own daughter’s virginity as they poked AK-47 assault rifles at his head to have sex with the about 14-year-old girl or pay with his life.

The man was reported to be taking his daughter to school as she had gained admission to the Tamale Senior High School.

Another elderly lady was also said to have been paired with a young man, and as she wailed from what she said was excruciating pain, the heartless robbers ordered her to shut up and enjoy the act.

But out of anger, she cursed them, warning them that God will punish them, while they laughed and claimed that God had long punished them already.

Amina claimed she was travelling to Tamale for her father’s funeral together with her mother. She said that when they got to Kintampo sometime after midnight, the road had been blocked with three men on the right side of the road, three on the left, four in the middle and two standing behind with AK-47 assault rifles.

Among the robbers, she said, were two women who wore braids.

Amina said the four men standing in the middle of the road held torch lights which made the driver and passengers presume them to be policemen, and so slowed down. The driver, however, accelerated upon realizing that they were robbers, driving through the blockade.

The robbers, however, pursued them on motorbikes and shot at the bus and eventually managed to stop the bus as the passengers screamed and prayed. A passenger was hit in the process.

When the bus stopped, one of the robbers boarded the bus, and asked all on the bus to get down.

They took all jewelleries, mobile phones and money on the passengers before announcing that the passengers were going to “enjoy” themselves.

According to Amina, the robbers then asked all the female passengers to undress, and they were to take off all clothing, including their underwear and brassiere.