Kumasi (Ashanti Region) 19 July '99

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is to investigate a case in which an immigration officer is alleged to have assaulted a 45-year-old trader in Kumasi last October.

This followed a petition by the trader, Madam Adwoa Nyarko to CHRAJ after the Attorney-General's Department had allegedly advised the police not to prosecute the immigration officer, Mr Divine Narlobie, stationed at Asante-Bekwai in the Amansie East district.

Madam Nyarko, in her petition, said the grounds upon which the Attorney-General's Department advice was given was not satisfactory, hence her decision to seek redress through the CHRAJ.

She claimed that the immigration officer brutally assaulted her without any provocation in her shop at Adum, Kumasi, on October 23, last year, saying she bled in the nose and had a swollen and contused face as a result.

Madam Nyarko said she reported the case to the Kumasi Railway police, who charged Mr Narlobie after investigations, but she was later informed by Superintendent of Police Florence Arthur of the Court Unit that the docket had been sent to the Attorney-General's Department for advice.

She expressed the hope that justice would be done and the immigration officer made to face the full rigours of the law.