.. we are closing in on the killers -Minister
As the months roll by on the quiet, official assurances of an imminent arrest of the killers of the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the Ghana Journalists' Association remains the clearest achievement.
Minister Albert Kan Dapaah is the latest to disclose that the police are close to bursting the gang that shot Samuel Ennin to death in broad day light.
"We are following some leads that look very encouraging," The Heritage newspaper quotes the Interior Minister as saying.
“He declined to elaborate”, according to the paper.
According to him, "it would not be helpful at this stage to give details as such disclosures tend to alert perpetrators and complicate investigations".
Saturday March 31, the body of the murdered 42-year-old journalist will be buried at his hometown Jacobu - near Bekwai in the Ashanti Region. But the police are tight-lipped on their investigations so far. The Ashanti Regional Crime Officer, ACP Bright Oduro said that the police were still investigating the case and were close to finding the killers. He was full of confidence that they would soon expose those men, corroborating what the Interior Minister said.
An earlier information by the police administration that it would soon find the killers was taken with a pinch of salt by some residents of Kumasi who believed the information was premature.
The Heritage said investigations have however revealed that soon after the search started for the perpetrators of the heinous crime, the police got a tip-off on some key people who could have committed the act and therefore kept a close watch and trailed them up to a point. A shoot-out ensued between the suspects and the police after which one person was arrested. But that man was released after interrogation because the police realised that he had nothing to do with the murder. This happened in the area where the late Samuel Ennin was killed.
The acting Chairman if the GJA in Ashanti, Atta Yaw said with the passage of time the fear that engulfed Kumasi Metropolis following the death of Samuel Ennin has minimized but for him in particular whenever he is alone he fears that he may suffer the same fate. "I am speaking from personal experience; anytime I am alone, the fear comes back and I am not able to work as freely as I used to when the late Ennin was alive".
Another senior journalist in the regional capital said since the death of Samuel Ennin, there have been all sorts of rumors flying around the Kumasi Township.
She recalled that sometimes ago, a man came to her with information that he suspected a visa contractor might have hired the killers of the late Samuel Ennin.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the lady says the late Ennin was approached by a man whose son had allegedly been swindled by a visa contractor. Ennin himself did not set out to compile a story on it; he had a meeting with the two men involved in the case (the alleged visa fraudster and the man who had been swindled). Though the anonymous reporter was not privy to what took place at the meeting, she said she was aware that Ennin gave the fraud victim numbers of some media houses to be invited to cover the case when it was prosecuted in court.
Because the visa fraudster feared that the matter would be made public, he might have organised the men to kill Ennin for wanting to expose him. She added that she performed her civic duty by handing the informant over to the Ashanti Regional Police Command to assist in their investigation. The suspect has since been arrested and is in Police custody for the visa fraud.