Fear has gripped residents of Ashalaja, near Amasaman, in Accra, following the alleged firing of warning shots at night by some persons alleged to have taken part in the murder of a member of the Akwando Royal family during the celebration of the Homowo festival last year.
Some residents, who claim they heard the gunshots, said those responsible announced that they were the accused persons released on bail and that they would go after any member of the community who volunteered information that led to their arrest.
Bloody Homowo
During the celebration of the 2014 Homowo festival at Ashalaja, in the Ga West Municipal Assembly, in the Greater Accra Region, a 36-year-old man was shot, while five others sustained gunshot wounds in a chieftaincy dispute in the area.
The victim, identified as Charles Kwaw Minta Addy, died at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital a day after the incident.
Subsequently, the police arrested five persons, including a former chief of Ashalaja, Nii Solomon Obendey, whose stool name was Nii Akwanor IV, until his name was expunged from the register of the National House of Chiefs on July 16, 2014, and one of his sons, identified only as Joshua.
Breach of law
At a press conference at the Akwando Royal Family House, the father of the deceased, Mr Adams Addy, said “we now live in fear. We do not know who they are actually targeting and what they are planning of doing next.”
He alleged that it was the Human Rights Court that granted bail to those who were arrested and argued that the court breached the law by doing so because the crime was a non-bailable offence per the country’s Criminal Procedure Code.
Section 96(7) of the country’s Criminal Code states that a court shall refuse to grant bail, (a) in a case of treason, subversion, murder, robbery, hijacking, piracy, rape and defilement or escape from lawful custody and, (b) where a person is being held for extradition to a foreign country.
According to him, tension was mounting in the area since the youth in the community were not happy with the handling of the case and urged the Inspector General of Police, the Attorney General, the Director of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and other relevant bodies to intervene to ensure that there was peace in the area.
The reigning chief of Ashalaja, Nii Akwandor, is from the Akwando Royal Family.
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