Lawyer of Shadrach Arloo, who died at the West Hills Mall following an altercation with the police, is calling for the immediate resignation of the Inspector General of Police (IGP).
Francis-Xavier Sosu says he will petition President Akufo-Addo to get the IGP, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, go as a result of the manhandling of Shadrach Arloo prior to his death.
Speaking on Ghana Tonight on Wednesday, February 8 in reaction to a statement issued by the Ghana Police Service earlier, Mr Sosu said the police rushed in releasing that statement because what they put out there was not the full report of the post-mortem examination.
“It must be placed on record that when it comes to homicide, be it first-degree murder or second-degree murder or in our case manslaughter or either intentional killing or negligent killing, there are several intervening factors because assuming that what police said is true and that he was choked on a foreign substance, it means that while this substance was in the throat of this young man, police managed to apprehend him.
“When you apprehend someone who has swallowed a substance, which you say is foreign, what will be the appropriate thing to do as police?” he asked, replying later that he could have been taken to the nearest health facility to get the substance removed and used as exhibit.
He said if the deceased’s hands were not even handcuffed, his fingers would have been inserted into his throat to get him to spue the foreign substance.
“But police handcuffs the guy, leaves him on the floor, and get others to either beat him or tase him on the floor until he died on the floor and so in recounting events leading to the death of this person, police conveniently blight all these things and simply say it’s because he got choked of foreign substance.
“For me, police is being disingenuous, police is not being truthful, police is not being candid and that is bad policing,” the lawyer, who is also Member of Parliament for Madina, said.
In their statement, the police said the post-mortem examination done in the presence of stakeholders including the deceased’s lawyer proved that he had been choked on a foreign substance which later tested positive for narcotics.
“The narrative of events, as gathered by the police, indicated that during the course of the arrest, the deceased pulled out a substance from his bag, which he quickly swallowed before anyone could stop him.
“He became unconscious shortly afterwards and was taken to the Sonotech Clinic for medical attention but was pronounced dead on arrival.”
But lawyer Sosu said the police cannot absolve themselves of blame in this incident and they are carefully taking a posture to escape liability.
“We are demanding a number of things that within the next seven days, the police should open up this investigation and make sure that anybody who is complicit is brought to book.
“Otherwise, we call for the immediate resignation of the IGP. If he fails to resign we are going to petition the President to remove him from office because you cannot be the head of police and see your officers misbehave this way and yet you want to use your own system to cover up for them.”
