Accra, March 11, GNA- Madam Comfort Adwoa Dede, a Witness on Thursday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) that policemen laid her on a table at Begoro lorry station and flogged her after the June 4 1979 coup.
She said one Arthur, a police officer whose son bought fish from her at the Begoro market caused her beating after accusing her that the fish was too expensive.
Madam Dede said she was then carrying a six-month old baby at the time of her arrest.
She said on the orders of Arthur, three other policemen stripped her cover cloth and stretched her on a table while two of them took turns to flog her 12 lashes each.
She said the chiefs, linguists and other opinion leaders watched the beating, expressing no sympathy for her as they also held the view that she was selling fish at high prices.
Madam Dede said she had injuries from the beating and that when her son tried to intervene and appealed to the police to beat him instead, they threatened to kill him.
She said the policemen later sold her remaining fish at “controlled price” but did not give her the proceeds.
Witness said she could not walk after the beating and she was hospitalised for a week and underwent three months’ further treatment before she was able to lie on her side.
She said sometime after, she began bleeding profusely and was admitted at the hospital again. Later she found out that she became diabetic and hypertensive.
Madam Dede said she was still on medication and could not go back to her business.
She said she later lost her husband and it became difficult to care for her seven children.
General Emmanuel Alexander Erskine, a Member of the Commission condemned the attitude of the police, who “instead of being civilian friendly rather took the law into their own hands” by molesting the witness.
When Madam Fofo Sasraku from Teshie in Accra took the Witness seat, she complained that she lost some items including clothing material glassware and some cash when her store and that of her mother in Makola No.1 Market were looted during the regime of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in 1979.
She could not quantify the cost the lost items, saying she did not know who looted the store.
Madam Sasraku said she had become indebted to a number of people after the incident, which had caused the collapse of her business. Most Reverend Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle, a Member of the Commission expressed appreciation to Madam Sasraku, when she said had forgiven those who looted her store.
Source: GhanaWeb
