Libya Kills 4 | One More On Death Row Website
Another Ghanaian, known as Kwabena Kankam, awaits death by firing squad any moment from now, after the execution of two of his compatriots on Saturday at the Kofiya Rehabilitation Facility in Benghazi, Libya. Kankam, said to be known to Libyan authorities as Mahmud Mustapha Abubacar, hails from Akim Oda in the Eastern Region. He had been convicted for allegedly stabbing a certain Isaac Oppong, a native of Dormaa Ahenkro in the Brong Ahafo Region and has since been sentenced under Sharia law in the North African-country for manslaughter. Only the family of Isaac Oppong can save Kamkam from going the way of the four other Ghanaians already dispatched to the world beyond. He is said to have been convicted after a scuffle with Isaac led to the death of the Dormaa born Ghanaian immigrant. If the Libyan authorities go ahead to execute him, the number of Ghanaians who have faced capital punishment in recent times in the oil-rich North African country' would have risen to five. Kankam is said to have also attracted the wrath of his jailors for his role in the publicity given to the now executed Kojo Blankson and Samuel Ayi Ayitey. The two Ghanaians were executed on Saturday after pleas for clemency and President John Agyekum Kufuor's last-minute intervention for stay of execution were turned down. The late Blankson handed over his mobile phone to Kankam before he was marched to the stakes with one of them allegedly telling him "You would soon die". Now being held incommunicado by the Libyans, it does not appear that anything would be heard from Kankam anymore. Before his execution, Kojo Blankson conversed with his aged mother, sister and daughter in what he described as his last chat with them. Kojo Blankson and his compatriot Samuel Ayitey who had been held since 1998 over the murder of their Libyan employer were said to be innocent. An Algerian, convicted for the murder of the Libyan had already been executed, according to a family spokesperson and a member of the International Correctional and Prisons Association, Mr. Michael Ampadu Jnr. Kojo Blankson, DAILY GUIDE gathered from family sources, was on his way to work when Libyan security officers nabbed him. "Even before the fatal bullets hit him, he was said to have uttered the words 'menim hu hwee' (I don't know anything)," a family source quoted a Ghana Embassy official as saying. President Kufuor, the family source noted, played a critical role to have the sentence reversed but we were surprised at the behaviour of the Libyan President who appeared not to have done anything to save the life of our innocent brother. Diplomatic activities about Ghanaian nationals on death row started on January 20, 2008 when the Ghana Embassy in Tripoli informed the Foreign Affairs Ministry about the planned execution of two Ghanaians – Asare Bediako and Charles Ansah Joseph. The two, on death-row with Kojo Blankson since December 2002, according to the Ghana Embassy, were convicted for the murder of a Libyan national. . Their executions. scheduled first for December 2002 and later May 2007, were put on hold following government interventions at the highest level. Eventually, the Libyan authorities executed two of them, with the fate of Blankson at the time unknown to the mission. That the Libyans would ignore the diplomatic interventions from Ghana was evident in their correspondence to the Ghana mission on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2008.
Source: MJFM
