Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has assured that government is committed to finding and prosecuting the killers of late investigative journalist, Ahmed Hussein-Suale.
“The government is fully committed to ensure that the murderers of Ahmed Suale are found and brought to book,” Mr Dame said in an answer to a question asked of him by the Member for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, on the floor of parliament yesterday in Accra.
Mr Sosu wanted to know the status of investigations into the murder of the investigative journalist and a raft of unresolved murder cases including that of former MP for Abuakwa North, JB Danquah Adu, late law lecturer at the University of Ghana, Prof. Yaw Benneh, late music producer, Fenec Okyere and two others.
Though regrettable that the case has dragged, Mr Dame said murder cases in nature take longer time to unravel as a good number of them also go unresolved.
Establishing the motive of the murder, he said, was very important as the killing may not be connected to Ahmed Suale’s investigative work.
According to Mr Dame, a lot of work had been done with regard to investigations with the Ahmed Suale case and the others and no matter how long it takes, government would do its best to bring the perpetrators to book.
“Just like the Tupac Shakur case (an American rapper who was killed in 1996 but the case determined some months ago), surely justice will be delivered in the Ahmed Suale case,” he emphasized.
Ahmed Suale, an investigator with private firm, Tiger Eye PI, was shot dead on January 16, 2019, months after their blockbuster piece, Number 12 which uncovered underhand dealings in Ghana football.
Giving an update on the case, Mr Dame said before assuming office in 2021, “no docket fit for prosecution or action has been built and presented to the office of the Attorney-General for prosecution since the deceased was killed. It is correct to say that the Attorney-General is thus not seized of this matter”.
Being concerned about the failure to resolve the Suale case and others, Mr Dame said he enquired about the state of investigations into same and report to that effect.
According to him, the investigation, thereafter, was expansive including contacting the Department of Geomatic Engineering of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology for the use of satellite imagery, sketch of assailants from a description of witnesses and use of telecommunications.
Additionally, he said two mobile phones of the late Suale were sent to the United States of America for unlocking and extracting of information by information technology experts from which huge volumes of data comprising “millions of documents, videos, audios, texts and WhatsApp messages have been analysed by a team from the Homicide and Cybercrime Units.”
He said pursuant to further request for information on the state of the investigations, a second information docket was received by the office of the Attorney-General in May 2023.
The docket, he said, indicated that investigations into the case were still ongoing and that the identity of the perpetrators of the murder was still outstanding as he recommits the state to getting to the bottom of the murder of the undercover journalist.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
