The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has explained that the military operation in Ashaiman on Tuesday, March 7 in which some residents were brutalized was not in any means to avenge the killing of the young soldier.
Military officers on Tuesday dawn stormed Ashaiman and brutalized some residents following the killing of a member of the Ghana Armed Forces Band, Sherif Imoro, 21, who was originally stationed at Sunyani in the Bono Region.
Sherif Imoro was in Accra for a military course and had sought permission to visit his parents at Ashaiman where he grew up but was later found in a pool of blood in the early hours of Saturday near the Amania Hotel in Ashaiman.
The military subsequently carried out an exercise where at least 184 suspects were arrested, an act many have condemned and described as a revenge.
But leadership of the GAF in a statement who said it sanctioned the swoop exercise declined the claims and clarified that the operation was to fish out the perpetrators of the crime.
“GAF wishes to state categorically that the military operation, which was sanctioned by the Military High Command, was NOT to avenge the killing of the soldier but rather to fish out the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
“The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) also wishes to place on record that the swoop was not targeted at innocent civilians but was an intelligence-led operation conducted on suspected hideouts of criminals and crime-prone areas in the general area,” the statement noted.
The GAF added that following its operations they arrested 184 suspects between the ages of 21 and 47 and have since handed them over to the Military Police and subsequently sent them to the Ghana Police Service for screening and for further action.
During the course of the swoop, the personnel seized 29 slabs and 57 mini slabs of suspected Indian hemp and amnesia among other forms of narcotics.
GAF said it, however, regrets that some innocent persons might have been caught up in the operation and consequently suffered some distress due to the location they found themselves at the time.
It is thus calling on the public to provide information and support the security agencies in weeding out criminals and miscreants from the community and to desist from shielding and conniving with such suspects in order to curb criminal activities in the country.
Read full statement
