My clients have been denied basic necessities – Lawyer for arrested secessionists
Some of the arrested secessionists in the company of CID officials
Legal representatives for some 31 arrested persons suspected to be members of the secessionist group in the Volta Region, Western Togoland have condemned the alleged unpleasant conditions the state is subjecting their clients to.
Read full article According to the lawyers, most of their clients are being denied the right to some basic necessities like bathing.
A situation which they described as an infringement of their basic rights as human beings.
This was in reaction to state prosecutor ASP Sylvester Asare’s demand for more time to conclude investigations into the case.
Bemoaning the unfavourable conditions of their clients, in court October 13, 2020 the lawyers including; Theophilus Donkor said; “You have uprooted them from their region, keep them here and say you need more time. The fact that this has become a national issue does not mean the right of these people be trampled upon.”
They described ASP Sylvester Asare’s demand as a delay tactic employed by the state to drag justice.
“My client is the only lady among them and as we have seen these people have not bathed for days and these are people who are in a discriminatory position,” they told the court.
To ascertain the truth in the claims by the lawyers, presiding judge of the Accra Circuit Court Rosemary Baah while examining the only lady in the group asked if claims by the lawyers were indeed true.
She answered; “I didn’t bath for the first three days. They refused to give me water to bath.”
Per details in a report filed by The Ghana Report, the case has been adjourned to October 21, 2020.
The 31 persons were arrested on September 25, 2020, in a dawn swoop and airlifted to Accra.
They were received at the Airforce base in Accra for onward transport to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) headquarters of the Ghana Police Service.
