A 46-year-old man residing at Boti in the Yilo Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region is nursing four injuries including a bone dislocation he sustained during a messy police operation in the community.
Anthony Soda, a farmer married with five children, was on the 20th of June, 2023, shot four times – in the buttocks, in his abdomen, and twice in the right leg, while confronting four men later identified as officers from the Police Intelligence Department (PID) of the Regional Police Command in Koforidua who had embarked on a special anti-narcotics operation to Boti to arrest a suspected female weed dealer.
The undercover security personnel after presenting themselves as interested buyers of the banned substance to the woman known only as Korkor later agreed to meet with her at her supply point at Boti.
The officers in an attempt to conceal their identities and portray themselves as narcotics peddlers were said to have dressed in mufti and wore earrings as they stormed the community.
During the course of the arrests however, the victim who was at home narrated that sometime around 10 am, he was attracted to the scene of the incident by shouts from some residents that armed robbers had invaded the community.
Upon arrival, he saw four men, two armed with guns, forcing the suspect in question into a taxi cab while some women and children shouted “armed robbers.”
“I was asleep and heard shouts of ‘armed robbers’ from some eyewitnesses, when I got there, a poultry farmer (woman) was being forced into a taxi as she fiercely resisted. I enquired from them what the matter was but they pushed me away, some of them spotted rasta, others corn roll, they wore earrings. I went a second time and I was pushed again,” narrated Mr. Soda.
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Infuriated by this, he furthered that he reached out to deflate the tyres of the taxi in order to immobilize it to prevent the ‘robbery gang’ from executing their mission of abducting the woman. He continued that this prompted one of the armed men to shoot him in the buttocks. He was subsequently shot three more times as he resisted.
The farmer recounted: “I bent to deflate the tyres to prevent them from escaping. Immediately, I was shot in the buttocks, I grabbed a stick to hit his hand and he shot my leg, then he shot same leg again, I fell and he shot me in the abdomen.”
This enabled the men to eventually drive away with the suspect.
Some young men in the community took him to a health facility at Klo-Agogo on a motorbike for medical attention but they were subsequently referred to the Eastern Regional Hospital in Koforidua, adding that some police officers in a pick-up met them on their way and transported him to the hospital in their vehicle.
According to him, an operation was subsequently performed on him where he spent eight days at the facility.
Asked if the men identified themselves in any way as security operatives, Mr. Soda answered in the negative saying, “Even if she was handcuffed, that would’ve convinced me that they were from the police service, they didn’t identify themselves in any way.”
After paying some GH₵ 3,800 in medical bills at the hospital, he added that he has paid a further GH₵1,500 to a herbal practitioner to treat the dislocation he suffered due to the shots.
This he disclosed was at variance with the hospital’s directive to him to seek expert attention at St. Joseph’s Hospital, also in Koforidua.
According to him, though some personnel of the police service came to the hospital where his statement was taken, nothing has since been done to settle his medical expenses.
Asked if he would seek compensation from the police service for the harm suffered and expenses incurred, he replied that he was yet to hold a discussion with family heads on their next line of action.
Attempted lynching of police
The appearance of the undercover security operatives and the subsequent shooting of the victim convinced the rest of the community that indeed these were armed robbers and kidnappers who had attacked their community.
The enraged youth subsequently alerted friends in neighbouring Nkurakan who mounted a roadblock in the community in wait for the alleged robbers with the youth of Boti also mounting a hot chase after them.
The officers were subsequently accosted by the youth at Nkurakan, forcing them to seek refuge at the Nkurakan police station along with the suspect.
The youth subsequently massed up at the police station, demanding that the officers, whom they still insisted were armed robbers and kidnappers, be released to them to enable them mete out instant justice to them.
However, the timely intervention of a reinforcement team of police personnel drawn from the Counter Terrorism Directorate (CTD) of the Ghana Police Service from Koforidua responded to the chaos where it eventually managed to whisk their colleagues to safety and restore order after firing several rounds of warning shots with the youth responding by throwing stones at them.
