Ghana’s Army owns up to brutality, issues apology

Ghana's Deputy Defence Minister Kofi Amankwa-Manu has apologized for military excesses after soldiers were deployed early Tuesday in Ashaiman, a suburb of the capital Accra.

Soldiers unleashed mayhem on some residents of Ashaiman on Tuesday with helicopters flying over the area because a young military officer, Trooper Imoro Sherrif, was allegedly stabbed in the town on Saturday, March 4, 2023.

The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) had disclosed that its operation in the area to find the killers of a military man was sanctioned by its high command.

“GAF wishes to state categorically that the military operation, which was sanctioned by the Military High Command, was NOT to avenge the killing of the soldier but rather to fish out the perpetrators of the heinous crime,” GAF said in its statement on Wednesday.

In an interview with local media, Mr. Amankwa-Manu deputy defence minister said "If decent, innocent residents of Ashaiman were caught up in these operations, I, in my capacity as deputy defense minister, apologize for that, " he, however, added that that the ministry will not apologize for the operation.

The Ghana Armed Forces in the statement announced that, following the operations at Ashaiman-Taifa and Tulaku, the military personnel picked up about 184 suspects aged between 21 and 47 years old and have since handed them over to the Military Police.

“Trooper Sherrif, who was stationed in Sunyani, was in Accra on a Course and had sought permission to visit his parents at Ashaiman where he grew up, but was found in a pool of blood in the early hours of Saturday near the Amania Hotel in Ashaiman,”

This is not the first time civilians have allegedly killed a military man in Ghana. In May 2017, An army officer in Ghana was lynched by a furious crowd of townspeople in Denkyira-Obuasi in the country’s Central Region. Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama was out for a morning jog and had his gun in his

According to reports, the army officer had stopped to ask for directions, locals saw his gun and assumed he was an armed thief and went to alert others. Mahama was set upon by a crowd, stoned to death, and partially burnt.