General News of Friday, 13 October 2000

Source: INDEPENDENT

Agyepong reiterates call for probe into murdered Judges

Kwabena Agyepong, son of one of Justice Agyepong, one of the three judges and a soldier murdered 18 years ago does not intend to give up his call for a new enquiry into the murder of his father and three others.

Mr. Agyepong, who was speaking to The Independent, said that he is not satisfied with the view expressed by the NDC Presidential candidate and Vice-President of Ghana, Professor Evans Atta Mills at his press conference last Tuesday that he does not think ?anything can be done or served by re-opening inquiries into their deaths.?

Mr. Agyepong, a civil engineer by profession who was about 20 years when his father and the others were killed has in the last few months been waging a campaign to get a new enquiry to establish the truth about what he terms the unsolved murder of his father. He has directly implicated President Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and says that he will not rest on his oars until the 1982 murders are re-investigated.

Last August, he took his case to Parliament asking the 200-member House to re-open enquiry into the murders and today at The Ghana International Press Centre, he will hold yet another press conference, his sixth so far to directly reply Professor Atta Mills on his views on the matter which are quoted in this issue.

In the telephone chat with The Independent, Mr. Agyepong would not disclose his reply but hinted that it will touch on whether it is sheer luxury for him and others to ask for a new enquiry. According to him there cannot be time limit to establishing the truth in matters like the 1982 murders and getting full justice. He said it does not matter when the truth is established. ?What matters is that we keep going on and on until the truth is established.

With most of the principal actors in the tragedy around like President Rawlings and his wife, Johhny Hansen, the then Minister of Interior, and Attorney-General G.E.K Aikins, Justice Azu Crabbe, who chaired the first enquiry and George Agyekum, The Presiding Chairman of The Tribunal that tried those accused of the crime around, we have the best opportunity to investigate the murders and put the issue to rest?, he said.