Mahama Should Be Sued Over Ex-Gitmo Detainees � Casley Hayford

Sydney Casely Hayford, an anti-corruption crusader, says President Mahama ought to be sued for accepting to host the two former Guantanamo Bay detainees transferred from the United States into the country.

“I think the President has taken us for granted and somebody is going to sue and has to sue in order to get to the bottom of this whole issue,” Casely Hayford said.

Both Ghana and the U.S governments have sought to allay fears of Ghanaians who believe the two pose a threat to the country’s security.

The Deputy Minister of Interior, James Agalga, has told Citi FM that government did all the necessary checks before resolving to resettle the two in the country.

But speaking on Citi FM’s News Analysis Programme, ‘The Big Issue’, Casley Hayford was convinced that the presence of the two is likely to destabilize the country.

“Anybody who ends up in Guantanamo Bay is no mistake not by any stretch of imagination…America’s singular role for establishing Guantanamo Bay was to be able to capture such persons and give themselves the liberty and the ability to torture them…When you put someone away for such a period time, the mental state in which you institute in that person’s mind, he is either going to come out as a broken person or he is going to come out with such resolution that he will repeat whatever he did forever.

“God forbid but should these two persons walk into Accra mall and see the open and liberal style in which we allow our women to walk around in a free atmosphere which they abhor and which they consider to be Western bastardisation and contamination of their people and then they start formulating an idea; should they blow themselves up or do whatever is necessary; this country will be destabilized for the rest of time ,” he added.

Sydney also wondered why issues regarding the two had all of a sudden become government’s priority if they are indeed not a threat to Ghana’s security.

“If this is not a security risk, if these two people are not security risks and they are not important, then why are we asking our security and interior whatever it is committee in Parliament to debate the matter? If these are low level security issues that are not going to impact on this country then why are we treating it as a security matter?"

"Why is National Security involved? Why is the Interior Minister involved and what should be a simple request to host a couple of people who are supposed to be free and not involved in any terrorism act. Why has it therefore become a security priority which is being debated as such. It doesn’t make common sense to me,” he maintained.