Police have asked the public to allow it a free hand to investigate the shooting to death of a 48-year old man at Afienya by an employee of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), so as not to jeopardise prosecution of the case in court.
The Afienya District Police Commander, Superintendent Nana Ofori, who made the appeal during a telephone conversation with the paper, said its preliminary investigation is premature to come to terms with circumstances, which led to the shooting.
On Wednesday May 13, 2020, at about 4pm, the deceased, Kwame Huzzy, was allegedly shot dead by one Thomas Oppong, an employee of TOR at the outskirts of Afienya, close to the Tema-Akosombo highway.
The Police Commander’s appeal has come in the wake of unsubstantiated reports that the deceased was a land guard, who, together with others, went to engage the suspect in a shootout, leading to the killing.
Information gathered by the paper from the ground revealed that the deceased and others’ services were hired by the company, which is constructing a One District One Factory (1D1F) project in that enclave.
It is alleged that the suspect, some years ago, purchased a parcel of land and went to put up two rooms where he moved to settle with his family. With the passage of time, the owners of the entire area offered the adjoining stretch of land to an investor for the establishment of plants under 1D1F.
The said entrepreneur expressed interest in acquiring other nearby land, including that of the suspect, with the understanding to pay him off. The land owners, on their part, wanted to relocate the suspect after a demarcation is completed, however, there was the need to value and pay for the already built structure.
There was a stalemate in the negotiations, forcing the suspect to proceed to the law court and obtained an injunction pending the final determination of the case.
Sometime ago, it is alleged that deceased had gone to leave his contact for the suspect to call him, but it has not been confirmed if the said call was made, and what transpired.
The deceased and his colleagues were said to have developed a good rapport with suspect and his family, since they are the only people resident there. On that fateful Wednesday, after close of work, the deceased spotted the suspect’s vehicle parked in front of the house, so he made a stop-over whist the evening meal of fufu was being prepared.
An account had it that the deceased reportedly stated that he was going to eat some of the food, during which the suspect went into the room and suddenly a gun was fired from that direction, raining bullets on Kwame.
However, another version claimed that the deceased attacked the suspect with pepper spray, hence, he rushed to the room, only for bullets to emerge through the trap door to kill Kwame Huzzy.
The suspect immediately packed the fufu being pounded and other items into the single room, put his family in the car, and runaway.
He later handed himself to the Police at Afienya
Meanwhile, Inusa Musah also reports that a technician mechanic at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has shot and killed the leader of a suspected gang of land guards at Green Stone, near Afienya in the Greater Accra Region.
This was when the gang engaged the TOR technician mechanic, Thomas Oppong, also a hunter, in a shootout at about 7 pm Wednesday, May 13, this year.
Just when Thomas Oppong and his family had finished preparing fufu for their dinner, sources said the suspected land guards, numbering about 20, stormed his residence, which is about 100 metres away from the Afienya-Kpong main road.
Except two who were spotted in an unidentified car, the rest were riding motorbikes.
The sources said, before they knew it, the land guards were beating Thomas Oppong, and as he managed to escape, they opened fire, but he fled into another room.
Thomas managed to reach his registered pump action gun and quickly returned fire at the assailants, killing the gang leader.
The rest, seeing their ‘Goliath’ fall, fled the scene.
Thomas, The Chronicle sources continued, managed to vacate his residence with his family and later reported himself to the Afienya District Police, who had already heard of the incident and, so, detained him.
When some personnel from the Afienya police visited the crime scene, the fufu, which Thomas and the family had prepared for their dinner, had blood on it.
The police retrieved some items, including empty cartridges.
Sources within the Afienya District Police told The Chronicle that the management of TOR delegated some staff, led by the Head of the Security, to visit Thomas who is currently in police custody.
The remains of the leader of the land guards had been deposited at the Tema General Hospital.
The post Mechanic kills suspected land guards appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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