CORROBORATIVE EYEWITNESS accounts have made clearer the circumstances under which a group of soldiers shot and killed an off-duty policeman at Ashaiman, near Accra, last Friday.
The deceased cop, 32-year-old Corporal Sampson Sorsey Quarshie of the Panthers Unit of the Ghana Police Service, was said to be the personal bodyguard of the Minister for Employment, E.T. Mensah.
His shattered mortal remains have been deposited at the Police Hospital morgue in Accra.
A reliable source said that Quarshie, who was riding a motorbike with registration number M-09-GR 4527 to his base at Prampram, was believed to have earlier gone to purchase some items for his two-month-old baby and his wife from the Ashaiman Main Market.
Persons who witnessed the killing said Lance Corporal Quarshie was in a shop at Ashaiman when a commercial driver rushed into the shop asking for help and claiming that his life was at stake.
The policeman then went outside the shop and saw that a soldier, whose name was given as Sergeant Lawrence Agbawu of the 1st Battalion Infantry, Michel Camp near Tema, was furiously at the heels of the taxi driver.
Eyewitnesses said the policeman walked up to the soldier to ask what the matter was but the soldier answered his question with some quick hefty slaps.
Not happy with the action of the military man, Quarshie was said to have retaliated with an equally hefty slap, an action that sent the soldier sprawling on the ground.
On getting up, Sergeant Agbawu was said to have cocked his gun and fired a warning shot into the air. In retaliation, the policeman also pulled out his gun and fired to disarm the furious soldier, injuring him.
The soldier was part of a joint elections security task force deployed to beef up security at the just-ended District Assembly and Unit Committee Elections in the Ashaiman area.
According to eyewitnesses, shortly after the policeman disarmed him, his colleague soldiers rushed down from the patrol vehicle to his aide.
They were said to have held the deceased from behind while one of them shot the policeman who was by this time on the floor. Afterwards, a hail of bullets was pumped into him in different parts of his body, an action which scared onlookers who ran for their dear lives.
The soldiers, after the bloody display, reportedly abandoned the policeman but picked their injured colleague into their vehicle and sped off to the Tema General Hospital.
They later returned and picked up the policeman’s pistol but left him, still lying in a pool of blood.
Onlookers, mostly the youth of the area, who earlier fled the scene in fear and panic, rushed back to rescue the over six feet policeman, after the military men had taken his pistol and left the scene.
The youth carried him from the scene to a distance of about five hundred metres where they shoved him into a taxi which conveyed him to the Tema General hospital where he was confirmed dead on arrival.
He was later pronounced dead as staff of the emergency unit of the Tema General Hospital tried desperately to save his life.
A certain Inspector Eduful of the Tema Buffalo Unit of the Ghana Police who was in the vehicle in which the military men were in was reported to have witnessed the incident.
Quarshie’s body was later conveyed to the Police Hospital in Accra.
Some persons believed to be family relations of the deceased, the source hinted, visited the mortuary of the Police Hospital on Saturday morning where they identified the dead as Lance Corporal Quarshie.
Meanwhile, an autopsy is yet to be carried on the remains of the late policeman at the morgue.
When DAILY GUIDE contacted the Ashaiman Police on the incident, they indicated that the matter had been referred to the Tema Regional Police Command to carry out investigations on the incident.
As at the time of filling this story, the boots of the late Quarshie were still at the emergency centre of the Tema General Hospital.
Yesterday, a statement jointly issued by the Defence Public Relations Directorate and the Police Public Affairs Directorate gave a rather interesting account of what led to the death of the policeman.
According to them, the joint elections security task force was responding to a distress call during the district level elections but was blocked by a Toyota van then discharging supplies at the Ashaiman market.
It said the situation compelled one of the patrolmen to ask the driver to reverse so their vehicle could have easy access but he refused so a verbal exchange ensued between the soldier and the civilian driver.
A policeman who chanced upon the development, the statement claimed, prevented the patrolmen from having the driver move his vehicle from the road.
“Even when the patrol leader, a police inspector, prevailed upon him to reason with the patrol, he would not budge. In the course of the fracas, he threatened the patrol members with his side arm,” the statement explained.
“As a solider-member of the patrol team attempted disarming the policeman, both men fell to the ground and in the course of the ensuing struggle, their weapons went off leaving them seriously injured,” the statement pointed out.
From Razak Mardorgyz Abubakar & Vincent Kubi, Ashaiman
Source: Daily Guide
