COP Kofi Boakye, others to face contempt charges

Three residents of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region have dragged the former Regional Police Commander, COP Kofi Boakye and four others before a Kumasi High Court for contempt.
The applicants – Adwoa Adowaa, Abusuapanin Ohene Tufour and Abena Mensah want the court to incarcerate COP Boakye for demolishing and destroying properties on a parcel of land at Santase roundabout which was a subject of litigation before the court as far back as 2004.

The other respondents are: the Regional Lands Officer of the Lands Commission, Akwasi Addai Odike and the Commander, Striking Force, Buffalo Unit, Kumasi, the Daily Guide newspaper reports.

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The applicants also want an order directed at the ‘contemnors’ to reconstruct the demolished structures.

Lawyer for the three, Nana Obiri Boahene argues that the respondents acted maliciously and undermined the competence of the judiciary when they pulled down the structures constructed on the land.

An affidavit in support of the motion, among others indicated that the Police Service was laying claim to the land which had not been allocated to it.

Mr. Obiri Boahen who is also the Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) said “in furtherance of the unholy alliance, which is characterized by fraud, personnel of the Ghana Police Service which is a defendant in an action commenced as far back as 2004 took the laws into their hands and in total defiance and abuse of law and order took the laws into their own hands in gross abuse of the legal procedure by unlawfully entering the land.”
He indicated that “for far too long, indiscipline has bedevilled our society such that people like the respondents who are supposed to know better ought to be imprisoned to serve as a lesson to every law abiding citizen.”