Former president of the Ghana Football Association and vice president of CAF, Kwesi Nyantakyi has labelled as false and outrageous, allegations of involvement in the murder of member of Tiger Eye P.I., Ahmed Hussein Suale.
Mr. Nyantakyi whose last public outing came after the release of Number 12, a documentary exposing alleged rot at the GFA and leading to his resignation, opened up to GhanaWeb’s Laud Adu-Asare in an exclusive interview, that he felt there was an agenda to link him to the heinous crime despite his innocence.
His emergence from the shadows had been necessitated by a “misreportage” of events by a French investigative journalist which was subsequently carried by some local media outlets.
A renowned international journalist, Guillaume Perrier, on Thursday, 16th January 2020, published findings of a private investigation into the murder of Mr. Suale, alleging that the Ghana Police Service had decided against following up on a critical lead.
In a series of tweets, he revealed that among other things his team of investigators have proof that former President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kwesi Nyantakyi, sent death threats to the murdered undercover journalist and although the death threat has been filed, it was ‘overlooked’ by the police.
“We also met former head of Ghana FA Kwesi Nyantakyi, banned for life by FIFA after being filmed by the investigative journalist pocketing $65,000 in a fake sponsor deal signed in Dubaï. And we can reveal that he also sent death threats to Ahmed Suale in 2018.
“Be very careful! You can easily lose your life with that’ he said to Ahmed in a phone conversation. The recording of it is part of the criminal file but was not investigated by Ghana Police,” Guillaume tweeted
Despite admitting that he had briefly met Mr. Perrier in August 2019, Kwesi Nyantakyi vehemently denied granting him audience and disclosed that the sequence of events had been misreported.
He noted that his phone conversation with the late Ahmed Hussein Suale occurred in November 2017 and not 2018 as conveyed by Mr. Perrier.
He recounted that he had met Mr. Suale through his aide, Abu after he promised to link him to a Qatari sheikh close to the Emir Al-Thani, who was ready to sponsor the Ghana football league.
“My conversation with Ahmed Suale actually took place in 2017. At the time I didn’t know he was an investigative journalist. I didn’t know he worked with Anas. I didn’t know he has set me up.
“After spending over $25,000 on airline tickets and hotel fees at Qatar, Ahmed Suale switched off his phone and bailed on us. He scammed me.
“He put me through an unnecessary burden of paying travelling expenses of a West African presidential candidate from his country via Accra to Dubai to meet non-existent Sheikhs for financial assistance.
“With the aid of a national security official I tracked Ahmed Suale’s hideout at Kantamanto at the time he was supposed to have been in Dubai for the meeting.
“He later called to confront me about why I had reported him to a national security official and describing him as a fraudster.
“I rebuked him and said he had to be careful with what he did. I thought he was a 419 guy. To evoke the fear of God in him I cautioned him to beware of such 419 tendencies in him else he could lose his life in future if he continued life in those ways.
“I told him that if he continued to scam ‘powerful’ people, they could attack him spiritually, I thought he was a ‘sakawa’ boy to be honest with you.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with investigative journalism or tiger eye or #12. The police are very much aware of all these facts. They've got the recordings, date of recordings and all relevant facts.
“I was invited for questioning by the police on January 18, 2019. After their investigations showed the date of conversation, they discredited the audio and thus my connection to the murder.
“If Anas and Kwaku Baako thought I threatened Ahmed they would’ve reported me to the police in 2017 but they never reported any complaint of threat to police from 2017 through 2018. The issue only came up in 2019 after the death of Ahmed,” he told Laud Adu-Asare exclusively.
Ahmed Hussein Suale, a member of Tiger Eye P.I. led by renowned investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was murdered by unknown assailants on a motorbike on the morning of Wednesday, January 16, 2019, at Madina, a suburb of Accra.
Listen to the conversation between Kwesi Nyantakyi and the late Ahmed Hussein Suale in November 2017.
Although the Ghana Police Service is still investigating the case, Guillaume Perrier revealed on Thursday that he travelled to Ghana in an independent investigation to unmask the killers of Anas’s partner.
“I went to Madina, the Accra neighbourhood where Ahmed was shot. I met eyewitnesses of the assassination. One of them flew in the North of the country by fear of reprisals. Another one was scared to talk and admitted police came to him and asked him to keep silent,” Mr Perrier revealed.
He also added that although eyewitnesses clearly recognised the sketched portraits that have been drawn and given to the police investigators, that has not led to any arrest.
In a related development, after the Anas Coalition released artistic impression of alleged assailants of Ahmed Hussein Suale, controversial journalist, Kevin Taylor, published a photograph of a man some claim is the bodyguard Kennedy Agyapong, who appears to have a resemblance to the art piece.
The MP for Assin Central became a person of interest after he sent death threats as well as releasing alleged photographs exposing the identity of Ahmed Suale and Anas Aremeyaw Anas to the public.
