NPP MP mounts defence for embattled colleague over killed undercover investigator

The Member of Parliament for Effutu has said calls for the police to consider Assin Central MP as a prime suspect in the assassination of a Tiger Eye PI undercover investigator Ahmed Hussein-Suale, are unfounded.

Alexander Afenyo Markin agrees that Kennedy Agyapong should be questioned in connection with the gruesome murder but is opposed to the general presumption that the lawmaker is complicit simply because of certain pronouncements he made against Ahmed.

“The man is not being held as a suspect, rather, after the incident, the first public statement came from a lawyer who tried to put two things together to make a case that in his view, the statement has a nexus so the police should invite him.

“Unfortunately in my view, it is unreasonable. It is an unreasonable call by that lawyer who is in court representing a client against Mr Kennedy Agyapong,” Mr Markin said on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile.

Ahmed and investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas came under heavy attack following the release of the Number 12 investigative piece that unearthed alleged corrupt acts in Ghana’s football.

While many applauded them for their work, others discredited the work and the methods used by the investigative journalists.

 

Ahmed was shot thrice as he drove to see his ailing child in the hospital

One of such critics was Mr Agyapong who in one of his numerous rants following the release of the exposé, used his television station NET2 to encourage violence against Ahmed, offering to pay personally for such violence and disclosing the deceased’s whereabouts. He also showed photographs of Ahmed during the live broadcast.

Many believe publishing Ahmed’s photograph in the manner Mr Agyapong did, caused disaffection for the undercover investigator and he, therefore, should be held liable for his killing.

The lawyer for Anas, Kissi Adjabeng in an interview with Joy News said Mr Agyapong has questions to answer and called for his immediate arrest.

But Mr Markin opposes this notion.

He says Mr Adjabeng should not be the one calling for the arrest of the Assin Central MP especially because both parties are already in court over a defamation suit.

The call for him is “tainted with so much prejudice.”

However, Mr Markin wants the police to work with all the information they are provided and leave no stone unturned in their investigations.

 

Mr Agyapong threatened to have Ahmed beaten

“Any information that will lead to unravelling the probable cause must be looked into and if it included inviting Mr Agyapong, it should be done,” he added.

He also called on the public to volunteer information to the police. In the absence of that, he doubts if the police will be able to function as expected of them.

Private legal practitioner and Vice President of policy think-tank IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil who was also a panel on the show, is calling for caution in pointing a finger at Mr Agyapong.

 

He fears that if care is not taken, time and energy will be spent in chasing the wrong person or persons.

“He is a person of interest, I think we should not treat him any special; we should take him through the proper processes…when you have a confluence of events, that kind of situation where there is a convergence of facts, somebody threatens you and later something happens to you…

 

“Clearly he is a person of interest but we should not make this about him. Let us look at the bigger picture of the security of ordinary persons,” he added.

Mr Bentil, however, disagrees with Mr Markin’s suggesting that until the public provides the police with information, they “cannot do anything.”

In his view, the police can and are allowed to use any means within the law to get to the bottom of a crime.

“The public’s cooperation would be to call a phone [emergency number] and say ‘this is happening here’…where is the system for that,” he queried.

The police, in his view, must have a sense of duty and should be punished when they fail to deliver on their mandate after all, all they require has been provided.

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