Kwame Ato Asare Ani, who the Ghana Police Service has declared wanted following the emergence of a viral video that showed a group of men reported to be illegal miners manhandling uniformed police officers.
“The people in the town I live in all know that I work with the police. Police officers troop to my house at least five times a day just to come and receive monies. Sometimes they don’t leave if they don’t see me. I give them money all the time,” the suspect told Kevin Taylor on his Loud Silence TV.
He alleged that the police are after him because of some money he collected which he was supposed to share with them but he refused to give to them the money because he felt cheated.
According to him, he has never been a criminal, but rather an informant who has been working with the police in the Western Region.
“The actual reason the police are after me is that they sent me to collect one billion (GH₵100,000.00) from a site at Kwakukrom but I refused to hand over the money to them. That is the reason why they are angry with me.
“I didn’t give the money because I felt cheated after working with them all this while. They were only giving me small sums of thousand or two thousand every time…
“It is because of the one billion I took and failed to give to them that they are accusing me of being a robber. But I am not an armed robber, nobody can prove that I have ever robbed their site. Sarfo (Axim Police Commander) told me to bring the one billion before they will release my car and other machines which they have seized,” Kwame Ato Asare Ani said.
The video that got him and his accomplices, Kojo Siah alias Mozey; Emmanuel Mensah alias Kofi Asamoah, Maxwell Cudjoe and Agyabu Haruna Dissawu shows them yelling at the police officers to register their displeasure about a claim that they had paid the officers but they still went ahead to arrest one of them.
One of the civilians wearing a military camouflage was seen in the video attempting to seize the weapon of one of the four officers while lamenting that the officers were trying to extort money from them after they had settled their demands earlier.
The angry civilians seized the uniform of one of the police officers and went further to attempt to seize an assault rifle. It was at this point that the officers resorted to kneeling to beg profusely, pleading with the civilians to temper justice with mercy because of the long-standing relationship between them.
Reports say the officers captured in the video were attached to the Axim District Police in the Western Region.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Police Service has arrested four of the civilians for allegedly attacking the police officers while the allegation of extortion made against the officers has also been referred to the Police Professional Standards Bureau for investigation.