The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has given an assurance that the government is fully committed to ensuring that the murderers of Ahmed Suale, an investigative journalist, are found and brought to book.
He said there had been enormous investigations into the matter, with some conducted beyond the shores of the country.
He, for instance, mentioned investigations conducted by the United States of America (USA) government through the FBI to help establish those behind Suale’s death.
“For me, the point of interest is that the motive for murder is very important because, for all you know, the motive is not connected to the work that he was doing and it is very important that we find those who murdered him,” he said.
Unresolved murder
Speaking on the floor of Parliament yesterday, Mr Dame said there had been many speculations and the failure to resolve the case gave room for more speculation by the public into the motives of the murder.
“As you can see, there has been serious work that has been done by the laboratory tests in the United States of America through the US Embassy in Ghana but still the situation remains unresolved.
“I can say that indeed, just like the murder of US rapper, Tupac Shakur, was unravelled only a few months ago, justice will catch up with the murderers of Ahmed Suale,” he stressed.
Mr Dame gave the assurance when he was responding to a question by the NDC MP for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, who sought to know the status of the murder investigations of Ahmed Suale, Major Maxwell Adam Mahama, J. B. Danquah Adu, Professor Benneh, Fennec Okyere, Abubakar Shalid and Shadrach Arloo.
He also updated the House on the status of investigations into the death of the other six persons.
Investigations
Mr Dame outlined various investigations that had been carried out by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and the US government.
He cited how the mobile phones of the deceased were sent to the US, through the US Embassy in Ghana, for the unlocking and extraction of information-by-Information Technology experts, with a request letter to that effect sent to the US Embassy on July 17, 2020.
In February 2021, he said the American Regional Security Officer, Bill Peiler, successfully handed over the two iPhones 7 plus and a Huawei smartphone belonging to Suale with an external drive containing the data from the phones to the investigator.
“Huge volumes of data, comprising millions of documents, videos, audios, text and WhatsApp messages have been analysed by a team from the Homicide and Cybercrime units.
Propaganda
When the NDC MP for Tamale North, Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini, took the minister on for saying that Suale’s murder might not be related to his work as an investigative journalist, Mr Dame said there had not been any establishment of the cause of death of Suale yet.
“There have been speculations that the deceased was murdered in respect of his work and this is very dangerous.
“Indeed, such tendency not only undermines the integrity of investigations that are being undertaken by the Ghana Police Service but also has the tendency to prejudice the minds of the public,” he said.
He explained how Fennec Okyere was primarily engaged in works related to the music industry as the producer of hiplife artiste, Kwaw Kesse, but the cause of his death “clearly shows that his murder was unrelated to the work he was doing.”
“He was engaged in land disputes in Accra; so really the fact that a person has been murdered, with all due respect, does not mean that that person is murdered primarily on account of the work that he was doing,” he noted.
He described various comments that sought to impute that Suale died in the line of duty as “propagandist and should not be countenanced.
Indeed, I will want to preserve the integrity of the work that is done by the Ghana Police Service,” he said.
Regarding three other persons who were arrested in connection with Suale’s death, the Attorney-General told the House that for the sake of investigations, the police would want to keep their identities confidential.
