Police at Yendi in the Northern region have arrested one person and declared nine more wanted after more than two weeks of investigations into a video that captured a rowdy mob attacking an armed police officer at a chief’s palace in Sang in the Mion district.
The police officer on duty was said to have been called by palace authorities to arrest two suspected cable thieves about to be lynched but rescued by the chief.
The mob followed up to the chief’s palace requesting him to release the suspects to face justice.
When the armed officer arrived, the mob were provoked by his presence and turned their fury on him.
In the video, believed to be recorded on a mobile phone, about ten youth surrounded the police officer inside a hall of the palace. The situation escalates and the police officer is violently grabbed by five or more of the men who struggled to tackle him down in order to seize his Ak47 weapon.
The police officer is heckled around by the attackers as he wrestles them desperately and refuses to surrender his weapon, in the brazen attack.
The police after the incident was able to identify most of the attackers and wrote to the chief to hand them over to face charges for assaulting a law officer and obstruction. But the chief declined the courteous request forcing the police to raid the community Thursday morning, weeks after the incident.
“This was a person who was on duty at Sang. He was called in to…in fact, the youth wanted to lynch the suspects so police have to be called in to rescue and then these same people turned up round to heckle the police officer, obstructing the police officer from performing his duty, and what did you the chief do? You couldn’t do anything. So we said since the incident happened at your place, bring them for us to question them.
“The thing happened on the 7th of July, up to now he has not been able to do that. So I said no, if that be the case, we have done all that we could; the respect we accorded him, he has decided to abuse it so we have to embark on operation”, Yendi police commander, Chief Superintendent Peter Kofi Ayerizeng confirmed the arrest.
The police, according to the commander, has been able to arrest one person and he is currently in custody after he was identified by the assaulted officer.
Chief Superintendent Kofi Peter also condemned the Sang chief for failing to protect the police officer during the attack. He also expressed regret for the lack of cooperation shown by the chief in the ongoing investigations.
The police have also declared nine people identified in the video wanted and advised them to surrender.
They have also published the full list of the suspects on the run and promised to pursue them if they fail to surrender.
The suspects; Malik, Doona, Isifu AKA Too Jay, Mohamed Alhassan, Hudu Kudu, Zakaria koriNaa, Musah Yakubu Seidu Inusah, Ali Zoo Nayili and Sumani Sham una.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Eliasu Tanko
