*As Mills Fails Quansah On Independent Inquiry*

Principles are principles no matter who is involved; a legal axiom on the lips of everybody in this country is that, everyone is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty by a competent court of jurisdiction.

It is no secret that Kweku Baako Jnr is an avowed and unrepentant critic of former President Jerry John Rawlings. The man is always emotionally despair anytime the name of Jerry Rawlings is mentioned, and he religiously tears the man in shreds as he himself has put it:“I will Strip him naked.”

Decades after the murder of the Three High Court Judges and the Army Officer, Kweku Baako never spares a moment, anytime that topic comes up, to raise a finger at the Former President, accusing him of being behind the killings. This is notwithstanding the trial and the subsequent conviction and execution of Amartey Kwei and co , the men found guilty of the heinous crime.

Mr. Baako’s popularity, if any, has to do with a crusade he is relentlessly waging to have the murders placed at the doorstep of the former president after so many years. To him, the real killers or killer is on the loose, as he will refer to Jerry again as a “Fugitive from Justice and a walking illegality”.

From the recent publications in his newspaper on the “Serial Killings” it is clear that Mr. Baako and his New Crusading Guide are practising arm chair journalism, being spoon-fed by the David Asante-Apeatu-led sloppy police probe into the killings which he sought to cover-up with fake video documentary.

Asante-Apeatu was tipped to be made the Nana Akufo Addo’s Inspector- General of Police IGP, had he won the 2008 Presidential election.

From 1998 to 2000, this country was grieved with the murder of 34 women dubbed as ‘Serial Killings.Charles Papa Kwabena Ebo Quansah, a farm hand, was arrested. The innocent man was tortured by the police, led by the then Superintendent David Asante-Apeatu. Inspector Onipa, Superintendent Issah and Sergeant Charles were the officers who allegedly tortured him to admit killing the women when he was in custody at the Police Headquarters in Accra.

Another officer, Hanson Gove, currently at the Homicide Department of the CID, is also mentioned to have been active in the serial killing investigations.

The Kufuor-led government made the nation believe that Quansah was mad and that he had the drive to murder the women. But Quansah maintains his innocence of the murders, denying the police claim that he voluntarily confessed to the crime. He insists on an independent inquiry into the killings.

A lot of Prison Officers at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons where Quansah is being held, are very familiar with his story.

The convict tells the officers that despite the fact that the police arrested him in June 2000 for allegedly killing his girlfriend, Joyce Boateng of Adenta in the Greater Accra Region, he was rather charged for the murder of a certain Akua Serwaa, around the Kumasi Sports Stadium. She reportedly died on January 19, 1996.

His lawyer, Mr. Joseph O. Amui, has also told this reporter on many occasions that during his trial, one Cynthia Nyarko, a prosecution witness who was said to be a sister of the late Akua Serwaa, could not identify Quansah, as someone who had intimate relations with the late Akua Serwaa as claimed by the Police.

Quansah also told the court that his real girlfriend in Kumasi by name Akua Nyamekye, is still alive.

Quansah insists that the Asante-Apeatu-led team, in a desperate bid to nail him, dragged him from Accra to an unknown location in Kumasi where they probably found Akua Serwaa’s corpse, creating an impression that he willingly took the police to Kumasi and showed them the spot where they took pictures of him.

Sometimes Quansah becomes very hysterical about his trial and conviction, saying that the said confession claims by the police team led by Mr. Asante -Apeatu, ex-Director of CID, is untrue.

He told prison sources about how he was blindfolded on many occasions, handcuffed from behind, taken in a vehicle to unknown locations deep in the night and subjected to hours of gruesome torture which always left him bleeding profusely from his nostrils, ears and mouth.

Eyewitness accounts and further investigations about the killings are beginning to emerge. They Show that the real killers are still out there, and that an innocent man has been incarcerated.

President John Evans Atta Mills has thus asked that, the case be re-opened, to enable the nation to get to the bottom of the issue. And Kweku Baako is up in arms, behaving as if he is the only Bastion of sound judgment.

Interestingly, Mr. Baako is questioning the rationale behind the president’s call for the re-opening of investigations into the murders, a classical case of double standards by the man who still thinks that the probe into the murder of the three high court judges and the army officer was unsatisfactorily dealt with. He holds the view that those who are calling for further investigations into the serial killings of the women are wasting precious national resources and on a wild goose chase.

It is easier to advocate for principles than to live up to them. You would have jumped to this opportunity if former President Rawlings was remotely connected to the case and you would have made a meal out of him.

Even when the National Reconciliation Commission failed to establish any prima facie case against the former president regarding the murder of the three high court

judges and the army officer, Mr. Baako still wages a one -man crusade to have the murder slapped on the former president without any

evidence.

The least said about what he has termed “the Air Force Killings” and his claim of having a list of over 200 missing Ghanaians during the Rawlings-led PNDC regime, the better.

Mr. Baako holds the erroneous impression that his views are most supreme than the views of others. No matter what anybody does, including going the extra mile to dig and sniff around in search of truth, Kweku Baako will not concede that his reports on issues are not true. His telephones calls and one-sided sources have failed him.

In one sense, Mr. Baako ,the self-professed apostle of democracy and rule of law, crucifies ex-President Rawlings for exercising his democratic right for wanting further investigation into the serial killings and in another breath, criticizes the Mills-led government for trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of the serial killing.

If for nothing at all to expose Mr. Rawlings for his claim that he has information that 15 ex-cabinet Ministers of the Kufuor regime were behind the killings, Kweku Baako should allow the reopening of the case to be carried out.

For once, Mr. Baako should spare us his tantrums. Ghanaians are fed up with his “I know it all” attitude.

One hopes that your intention is not to stand in the way of justice and stampede the investigative process by your incessant and senseless remarks on Radio and Television.

The families of the victims still want justice, and that justice is well served if those behind the murders are made to face the full rigours of the law.