“They really gave me the beating of my life. I pray it doesn’t happen to any Ghanaian,” these are the words of Emmanuel Kotin, a security expert who was physically assaulted by armed police patrol team on Sunday.
He told TV3 News@10 the “unfortunate incident” was not only “barbaric” but was carried out by “unscrupulous” officers whom he stressed are “denting the hard earned image of the police service”.
The police personnel after allegedly pummeling him also stole GHS2,000 stashed in his back pocket, the Executive Director of African Center for Security and Counter Terrorism claimed.
Narrating his ordeal via Skype to Stephen Anti on Monday evening, Mr. Kotin recalled stepping out of a family meeting on Sunday evening and saw an approaching vehicle which flashed the headlights that momentarily got him blind.
“I covered my face with one hand and used the other hand to protest,” he said, “when the car got nearer the driver of the vehicle said to me ‘I was a stupid man’. ”
When he realised it was a police vehicle, he asked the driver what he did to warrant the insult, but he said the policeman got annoyed “came out of the car and punched my face”.
The other police officers got out of the car and joined in assaulting him, he said.
They tried to handcuff him but, he said, he “resisted” initially because the officers had no name tags.
The angry looking armed men, he said corked their guns at him whilst they continued to beat him
“I don’t know that it is a criminal offense to question a police officer for an assault on a harmless civilian in Ghana. They did their worse and tore my trousers, gave me some punches and used the head of their guns to hit my ribs,” he indicated in an earlier conversation with TV3.
According to Mr. Kotin, the police officers would not even listen to some family members who came around and introduced themselves as former Members of Parliament and a former deputy minister.
“They called the bluff of the former MPs and told them that they have arrested people who are more than them,” he narrated.
The security expert said he reached out for his phone to call for help but the officers retorted, “that I can call any big man, after all it is these same big men that sent them to come for me”.
At this point they realised the worst could happen so he was advised by his uncles present to just “comply” to avoid being framed later, should anything happen.
“Since they have corked their guns and this scuffle they don’t shoot me and say that it was in the midst of the scuffle that the gun went off,” he recounted his uncle’s advice.
“So they bundled me into their car”, he said.
According to Mr. Kotin, though the police personnel told his uncles that he was being taken to the Sakumono Police Station, they diverted on their way and rather sent him to the Community 18 District Headquarters, where he later called a senior police officer at the national headquarters who got him released.
It was after his release that he found out that his GHS2,000 was missing but GHS740 he kept in the other pocket was intact.
What happened was “a dent on the hard working personnel of the service”, he analysed, pointing out that he now believes stories told of police taking the law into their own hands and framing their victims afterwards.
By Isaac Essel |3news.com | Ghana