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The attorney for the 31 alleged secessionists currently in the custody of the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI), attorney Theophilus Donkor, says his clients are not members of the Western Western Togo Restoration Front (WTRF).
According to him, his clients were random residents of the region who were simply present at the scene of the incident when the joint police-military security force detained them on suspicion of their involvement in the riots.
The secessionists, members of the WTRF, are reported to have blocked the main roads in the North Tongu district of the Volta region and launched a simultaneous attack on two police stations in the cities of Mepe and Aveyime, looting their arsenal and detaining them. 3 police officers.
This was done in an attempt to proclaim their sovereignty and demand that the government of Ghana recognize them as an independent state.
The Ghana Police Service, after a few hours, was able to defuse the situation and arrested some 31 suspected secessionists, and two people were killed in a shootout with the security forces.
However, in JoyNews’ PM Express, attorney for the defendants, Theophilus Donkor claims that the Ghana Police Service made a mistake in arresting the 31 alleged secessionists.
“Yes, they were at the crime scene, but as they traveled and the traffic had accumulated, they went to the crime scene to find out exactly what was happening. At the time they were arrested, all the people who allegedly belonged to the secessionist group had left the place ”.
It also added that no offensive weapon was found in any of the people detained at the time of their arrest.
“I must also point out that none of the 31 people arrested on Friday, no offensive weapons, nothing at all were found.”
He also drew the presenter Evans Mensah’s attention to the fact that the initial story showed images of the secessionist group “dressed in black with inscriptions and then khaki green pants, but if you look at the defendants who were in court today, some of them were wearing dresses that went to the farm, some traveled, these were not part of the secessionist group, ”he said.
This, he said, became clear to the police during their interrogation session with the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), in whose custody they are currently in custody.
“And they have made it clear to me and have told the police during their interrogation that they do not belong to this secessionist group; nobody has recruited them, nobody has extended an invitation to them so that they are not part of this secessionist group, “he said.
Furthermore, Donkor revealed that the prosecution in court admitted on Monday that the Accra High Court does not have jurisdiction over the matter as the incident occurred in the Volta region.
“According to section 45 of Law 30, they were supposed to try the case within the Volta Region, which has jurisdiction over the place where the crime was committed, so they themselves went to court again and said that the court it has no jurisdiction and the only reason they are in court is to put in preventive detention the 31 people who have been accused of the crimes that were presented in court. “
The judicial process has been postponed at 13th October 2020 after prosecutors gathered enough evidence to indict the alleged secessionists.
