The Deputy Minister of Defence, Kofi Amankwa-Manu, has apologised to the people of Ghana for the excesses recorded on Tuesday, March 4 when some soldiers launched a swoop in Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region.
The soldiers stormed Ashaiman to fish out perpetrators of a heinous crime, which resulted in the stabbing to death of 21-year-old soldier Imoro Sherrif.
Imoro Sherrif, a Sunyani-based trooper in the Ghana Armed Forces, was found in a pool of blood in the early hours of Saturday near the Amania Hotel in Ashaiman.
The Military High Command sanctioned the operation, 3news.com has been told.
Speaking on TV3‘s Ghana Tonight on Tuesday night, Mr Amankwa-Manu, who is also the Member of Parliament for Atwima-Kwanwoma Constituency, confirmed that the operation was a sanctioned coordinated military operation.
He, however, apologised for any excesses that may have resulted in the operation.
“There were excesses,” he conceded. “I will apologise.”
He continued: “Sometimes when missions are being carried out, you get one or two people who are being carried away and engage in excesses.
“If anybody has suffered, that we apologise but what what I want to put on record this is a sanctioned coordinated military operations.”
So far, 184 persons have been picked up and handed over to the Military Police.
The Military Police has, in turn, handed the suspects over to the Ghana Police Service “for screening and for further action”.
Mr Amankwa-Manu warned that the military “will stop at nothing until we get those who committed this heinous crime”.
“It’s becoming [one] too many.”