Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr
Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr., has suggested the exhumation of the bodies of the two people killed during the violence in Ejura following the murder of Ibrahim Mohammed, alias Macho Kaaka, a social media activist.
The military and police officers who have testified at the ongoing probe into the violence have already said some of the irate youth had weapons, including pump action, and it had been fired from the direction of the crowd during the mayhem on June 29.
Mr. Baako said on Saturday during Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, that “It’s a critical requirement that the bullet that killed them must be available because then we’ll be able to tell which gun shot that bullet.”
He said, “If we are not going to get the bullets that killed them because of a certain emergency situation, so we’ve buried the bullets together with the human bodies, my goodness, what are we doing? This is an exercise in futility then.”
Doctor’s Evidence
The Medical Superintendent at the Ejura Government Hospital, Dr. Mensah Manye, when he appeared before the three-member committee disclosed that some irate youth stormed the hospital and forced the authorities to reluctantly release the bodies of the two men for burial without the usual postmortem analysis.
He had said the irate youth were getting ready to burn down the hospital if the authorities failed to release the bodies, and as a result, there was no autopsy done before the two men were buried.
Dr. Manye, testifying before the three-member committee under the chairmanship of His Lordship Justice George Kingsley Koomson of the Court of Appeal, that is probing what happened at Ejura in the Ejura/ Sekyedumase District in the Ashanti Region, said “they came in and wanted to pick the body, I said no we don’t do it like that. But they realised I was delaying their time and I said ‘even for what happened, I had to call the police… and we arranged for post mortem.”
He continued that “it was there that they shouted that they will burn down the hospital if I try and also they will actually beat us very well leading to death.”
“Because of the agitation, I released the body… quickly and reluctantly I had to release the bodies to prevent the hospital from being burnt and also save the lives of my staff and myself, so I quickly released the bodies,” he added.
When the committee asked the witness whether the bullet wounds of the deceased were from short- or long-range gunshots, he said he was not a forensic expert but could tell that the bullets penetrated the victims from the back.
Dr. Manye also indicated that one of the deceased, Abdul Nasiru Yusif, 25, was brought to the hospital already dead, and the other victim, Muntala Mohammed, died 10 minutes upon arrival.
Baako Again
Mr. Baako again said that he is still not convinced that the protestors in Ejura were armed with guns as has been suggested by the security agents.
“It cannot be true. Look, we’ve seen different types of videos. They were armed, maybe with machetes, knives, sticks, but nobody can convince me that they were armed with weapons firing at the military and the police. So I cannot be convinced,” he said.
He said if indeed some of the protesters were armed, the military would have brought that piece of evidence when the top military personnel appeared before the committee last week.
“If it were true, they would have done that crime scene management and in the process would have located shells that would be part and parcel of their defence. They don’t have it. They didn’t send it because it doesn’t exist,” he added.
By Ernest Kofi Adu