Friday, 29 March

COVID-19 lockdown: 406 deviants arrested, could get 10 years in jail or up to GHS60K fine

Crime
IGP James Oppong-Boanuh

Anybody arrested and found by a competent court of jurisdiction to have breached the lockdown rules in Kumasi, Accra, Kasoa and Tema may spend ten years in jail or fined between GHS12,000 and GHS60,000, the Head of Prosecutions at the Accra Regional Police Command, ACP Lydia Donkor, has said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Several videos have become the toast of social media showing, in some cases, security personnel using force to ensure that civilians obey the stay-at-home directive of the President being implemented as part of measures to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, which has, so far killed eight out of the five hundred and sixty-six confirmed cases in Ghana with seventeen full recoveries.

There was an instance in Ashaiman in Greater Accra Region where a soldier shot a civilian dead while on lockdown duties. Similarly, in Trede in the Ashanti Region, a policeman is said to have beaten a civilian to death while enforcing lockdown measures.

Just on Monday, the police arrested a bride and groom along with over twenty guests at a wedding ceremony at Darkuman, Accra, for breaching the ban on social gatherings.

A similar incident happened in the Ashanti Region.

So far, according to the police, 406 persons have been arrested during the lockdown period. While 103 of them are in custody, 248 have been granted bail and 41 have been processed for court.

Majority of them are in Greater Accra 161 and Ashanti Region 70.

The others are Volta 67, Western 8, Eastern 6, Western North 31, and Bono 20.

The rest are Northern 9, Central 24, North East 1, Upper East 8, Upper West 2, and Western North 8.

ACP Lydia Donkor told journalists on Tuesday that the Ghana Police Service “wishes to advise the general public, once again, to comply with all the rules and regulations governing the imposition of restrictions act”, adding: “All my colleague heads of legal and prosecution in other regions have been charged to ensure that they enforce section 6 of the imposition of restrictions 2020 act 1012.”

“And I’ll state here for emphasis that if you are arrested, you will be prosecuted after successful investigations and you are found guilty,” she stressed.

 

Source: Classfmonline.com