ASHAIMAN CELLS TO BE IMPROVED (1B, FEB 13, 2010)

Story: Rose Hayford Darko & Caroline Boateng

THE Estate Unit at the Police Headquarters is liaising with the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly to create ventilation holes in the cells at the Ashaiman Police Station.
It is expected that the exercise will include an expansion of the cells.
The Commander of the Ashaiman District Police, Supt Phillip Kobina, disclosed this when the three commissioners of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mr Justice Emile Short, Ms Anna Bossman and Mr Richard Quayson, visited the Ashaiman Police Station after the death of two inmates last week.
The cell was humid, hot and dark and rashes were seen on the skins of most of the inmates.
The inmates seized the opportunity of the visit to tell their story, trying to outdo one another with their cries.
“Complain! Complain! Emile Short! Emile Short! I have been here for years! They said I robbed someone! Where?”
Twenty-six inmates were in the cells at the time of the visit.
Fourteen had been taken to the Nsawam Prison in the morning, Supt Kobina said.
One inmate was 16, while another exhibited a strange behaviour, moaning and screaming.
Supt Kobina said the Ghana Prisons Service had been ordered by a Tema Circuit Court to take the sick inmate to a psychiatric hospital but the prison authorities had instead dumped him in the Ashaiman cells.
He also raised the challenges facing the police, including their inability to do anything with the prisoners once the courts had made a decision for their remand.
Justice Short, in his interaction with the press afterwards, described the situation as “dehumanising” and “sad”.
“Not even animals will be made to live like this,” he said.
He said he would be meeting with the Inspector General of Police to ensure that the minimum standard for suspects in the country’s cells were kept.
Meanwhile, Justice Short has further directed a detailed investigation of the circumstances which led to the death of the inmates last Monday.