| It has emerged that at least two senior military officers of the Ghana Armed Forces have been detained by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for questioning alleged coup plot targeted at the presidency.Lawyer for one of the three persons being held over the alleged plot, Victor Adawudu, revealed Tuesday that the two officers whose names he declined to give, were picked up Monday and had to spend the night in BNI cells in Accra.
“…It is unfortunate that with issues like this, that is nowhere near destabilising a nation, you take senior military officers, and put them behind bars. What are you doing?” he asked rhetorically on Joy FM Tuesday.
According to him, the detention of the two is likely to create “agitation among the senior military rank”.
“Some of them were just invited only yesterday that ‘we need you’. They go to their bosses, their bosses bring them, [and] then you come and say orders from above you have to be detained” Mr Adawudu claimed.
“These are not junior rank, not middle rank; senior officers have been brought and they slept at BNI. As at yesterday I know of two” he stated.
The legal practitioner explained the two officers have been picked up by the security operatives because of their relationship with his client, Dr. Frederick Yao Mac-Palm.
Information Minister Kojo Oppon Nkrumah confirmed on the show that some military personnel have been picked up as part of an elaborate ongoing investigations into the purported coup plot in the country. A joint operation conducted on Friday, September 20 at Alajo and Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region led to the arrest of three persons and the retrieval of several arms.
The suspects have been identified as Dr. Frederick Yao Mac-Palm and accomplices Ezor Kafui, a local weapon manufacturer, and Bright Allan Debrah Ofosu.
Government statement subsequent to the arrest claimed the operation was “to neutralize an elaborate plot targeted at the Presidency and with the ultimate aim of destabilizing the country”. The operation was the final move to foil the attempt after 15 months of surveillance and gathering of evidence, government claimed. According to government, the plot was to be almost carried out as Dr Mac-Palm, Mr Ezor and a soldier on Thursday went to a place close to Laboma Beach to test-fire some of the locally manufactured weapons. |
