How a Police Watchdog Committee is Secretly Probing over 40 Extra-Judicial Killings

A checkmate department within the Police Service is investigating over forty (40) extra-judicial killings by officers of the service in more than five years since the beginning of the brutal regime of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, WhatsUp News has heard.

The police’s Professional Investigations Department (PID) has its personnel out and around the country probing why tens of detainees and suspects were killed by officers without a death sentence by a court of competent jurisdiction.

It is unclear if these killings include the more public ones where security agents had opened fire on unarmed protestors during the 2020 elections, the Ejura protest in the Ashanti Region and the bloody Nkoranza protest.

Apparently, the investigations are being done secretly, something that has alarmed sources into fearing that there may be a cover-up being schemed.

Whistleblowers from within the Service have told WhatsUp News that the cover-up may not be far-fetched because the said killers in the security services are mostly political recruits by the Akufo-Addo government often drafted from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s goon squads like the Invisible and Delta Forces.

According to sources from within the Police these are the officers that are notorious for gangland dressing, including wearing shaggy beards, earrings and tattoos even though the official police dress code prohibits such dressing.

It said the death cases are littered around the country and that the investigations have been going on since the first quarter of 2022.

Some of the cases under probe include the strange disappearance of a detainee, Albert Donkor, from the custody of the Police in Nkoranza in the Bono Region.

It would be recalled that following the disappearance of Donkor, and subsequent revelations that he had been executed by Police officers whom he identified as being part of an armed robbery squad, the Nkoranza Police Command dubiously argued that Mr. Donkor has been an armed robber himself and had been killed during an exchange of gunfire with the Police.

However, Mr. Donkor’s family had rejected the claim saying he was picked up from home to police custody where he died.

His death has led to a rampage by the angry youth of Nkoranza, which led to the killing of one more person and the arrest of two by the Police.

Oliver Barker-Vormawor, Convener of pressure group, #FixTheCountry would later allege that the Police had taken Donkor out of custody and shot him dead while lying to his family that he had been gunned down in a shootout between the police and armed robbers.

According to the activist, Albert had seen a police officer committing a robbery and reported him to his colleague officers, who rather than taking action, arrested the whistleblower and later shot him dead apparently to cover up the robbery by their colleague.

“Albert Donkor was taken out of his cell and shot dead. His mother went to the Police station to see him writing his statement. He was killed by the time she returned in 2 hours. She was told he was being held at 5 different police stations for three weeks,” Mr. Barker-Vormawor stated.

Source: whatsupnewsghana