The Deputy Minister for Defence, Kwaku Amankwa Manu has stated that the government will not offer any apology for the presence of armed military men in Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region on Tuesday, March 7, 2023.
According to the deputy minister, while the government feels sorry for the alleged incidents of violence meted out to civilians during the operation, it is not in the books of the government to apologise for the operation which has been deemed by some critics as unlawful.
“I think that it is only proper that we admit when there are excesses and in operations of this nature, you may get one or two people who may get carried away and so I mean if decent, innocent residents of Ashaiman were caught up in these operations, I, in my capacity as the deputy Defence Minister will want to apologise for that. That, of course, we will apologise, but my brother, we are not going to apologise for the operation,” he told Joynews in an interview.
Dozens of military officers stormed Ashaiman in the operation that commenced on Tuesday dawn.
The exercise saw some soldiers entering the town in trucks with a helicopter hovering over the town.
The exercise is said to be in response to the gruesome murder of a young soldier by some unidentified persons on Saturday, March 4, 2023.
Videos of the invasion shared across social media show various forms of assault being meted on residents by the rampaging officers who subjected some of the residents to severe beatings.
Mr Kofi Amankwa Manu in his interview with Joynews, admitted that the soldiers may have acted outside their jurisdiction by entering into a community without the collaboration of the police but was quick to justify that “when we are not in normal times, we cannot do normal things.”
The Deputy Defence Minister also confirmed that the exercise was sanctioned by the military high command as an operation to apprehend the suspects behind the murder of the junior soldier.
