The late BNI officer
Six suspects arrested in connection with the deadly shooting incident at Mankessim in the Central Region during a chieftaincy procession have appeared at the Cape Coast District Court 2 charged provisionally with conspiracy and murder.
The court presided over by Gloria Mensah Bonsu remanded the suspects in police custody until January 19, 2020 for investigations to continue.
The suspects included Nana Oboso, who surviving victims think was behind the shooting; Kwame Adu, Kwame Buako, Kofi Ababio, Yaw Opoku and Kofi Abban Dadzie.
The Mfantseman Municipal Director of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), Samuel Ampofo, and a student were shot dead as others sustained gunshot injuries during the installation of a queen mother at Mankessim in the Central Region on Saturday.
An Inspector of Police, Detective Inspector William Nyarko of the Mankessim Station Criminal Investigations Department (CID), was also hit and was in critical condition with pellets lodged in his body.
The others who were injured were identified as Kwesi Owusu, 65; Frederick Amoanoo Dadzie, 37; Nana Boako, 29; Benedrick Nana Banco, 29, and a yet-to-be identified 27-year-old man.
The deceased BNI officer was part of a security detail leading the procession of the newly installed queen mother, Nana Araba Otuah II, when they were hit by pellets from firearms said to have been fired from a nearby storey building during the procession.
The incident was a bloody chapter in the long-drawn chieftaincy dispute in which a court ruling nullified the enstoolment of Nana Ama Amisah, the substantive queen mother, ordering the deletion of her name and that of the Omanhene of Mankessim from the register of the National House of Chiefs.
Police Report
Whilst the newly installed queen mother was being carried in a palanquin and paraded in a procession along the Mankessim-Ananfo road, according to a police report, some gun men in a storey building near the Ananfo Junction opened fire on those at the head of the procession.
Background
A Cape Coast High Court order which nullified the enstoolment of the occupant of the Mankessim stool and the substantive queen mother Nana Ama Amisah and the subsequent green light to Nana Araba Otuah II to take her place was characterized by the traditional procession on the streets of Mankessim.
Some killjoys seeking to mar the process and merriment which followed engaged killers who took cover from a nearby storey building from where they fired shots into the excited crowd.
The BNI officer was particularly targeted by a lone shooter who stalked him and eventually shot at him.
The spent cartridges were the main telltale evidence picked by police officers who stormed the storey building from where the shooters fired.
By Nana Kwasi