General News of Thursday, 14 August 2003

Source: Independent

Boakye-Djan Storms Accra

The number two man in the government of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) regime, Major (rtd) Kojo Boakye-Djan is scheduled to arrive in Ghana on Saturday, August 16 after 22 years in exile in the United Kingdom.

He will be in town for two weeks and return to London to wind up affairs for his permanent relocation to his motherland, Ghana.

According to the Independent, Mrs Evelyn Owusu (nee Djan) sister of Major Boakye Djan has petitioned the National Media Commission in connection with the execution of their brother, Kyeremeh Djan in 1986.

Kyeremeh Djan, then a Mathematics and Computer Science student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, was executed in August alongside Mawuli Dra-Goka and others in the aftermath of the treason trial after several bouts of torture at the hands of the hatchet men of the PNDC for allegedly attempting to overthrow that government.

Mrs Evelyn Owusu, who is now based in the United States was used as a prosecution witness in the 1986 treason trial involving her brother and others, but was subsequently kept in unlawful custody for over four years without trial by the PNDC.

It is not known if the NRC has given a date for hearing in connection with her petition and whether Major Boakye-Djan will be at the hearing.

The last time Boakye-Djan, who has been in exile for 22 years visited the country was in October 1981. He gave an interview to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1982 during which he condemned his former colleague and then Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) regime, Flt Lt. Rawlings for overthrowing the constitutionally elected Limann government.