Five Ghanaians in Togolese police custody over alleged disruption of voter registration exercise
Five Ghanaians are in Police grips at Gbadaag, a town along the Ghana-Togo border over the disruption of voter registration exercise.
The suspects are said to have been in custody for the past three months at Dapango in the Nothern part of Togo without trial in court to determine their fate.
They were arrested alongside some Togolese citizens at the Gbadaag market on October 20 2018.
The said Ghanaians are indegenes of Bunkprugu District in the Northern region of Ghana and were engaged in trade when they were picked up by the Togolese securities.
The Gbadaag Market is a popular Togolese market near Bunkpurugu where nationals of both countries trade.
Mr Godwin Duak, a relative of one of the suspects, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, confirmed the detention of the suspects.
He gave their names as Duak Bitian, Kombat Nini Bjobin, Duut Dajeb, Kombian Jaben and Laar Mobong.
According to him, the five, who lived near the border, had gone to the market to trade and were resting at a pito joint when the armed security personnel stormed the market with three vehicles and rounded them up.
He claimed that the five Ghanaians were not involved in the alleged disruption of the registration exercise because they were not taking part in the exercise for the Togolese presidential and parliamentary elections.
Mr Duak added that the suspects had not been charged before any court in Togo.
“All efforts made for the security authorities to grant them bail have proved futile,” he said.
According to him, family members in Ghana had travelled to Togo on several occasions in a bid to secure bail for the five “but anytime we went there they took money from us before allowing us to see them”.
He stated that one of the suspects who is old had wounds sustained through a motorbike accident he was involved in three days before his arrest and his condition had deteriorated, as he had not been sent for medical treatment.
Another relative of another suspect, Mr Nanoang Silas Jadan, said: “We reported the incident to the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Bunkpurugu but nothing much has been done about it. We don’t have a problem when they are tried and found guilty, but our worry is that they have not been given a hearing.”
The family members appealed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration and the Ghana Mission in Togo to intervene to secure the release of the five from unlawful custody.
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