THE parents of 11-year-old Aaron Okyem Djan, who was allegedly molested and detained by Nana Akwasi Agyeman a few days ago for beating his five-year-old son has turned down a police request for settling the matter out of court.
Information available to Daily Guide indicates that the Tafo/Pankrono divisional police command which has taken over the investigation of the alleged incident has entreated the family of the victim to allow the case to be settled amicably.
The suggestion of the peaceful settlement of the matter was allegedly put forward by the divisional police commander Mr. Adusa Poku, when the family met the police on Thursday afternoon.
Led by Nana Kwantabisa, the victim’s grandfather, the family met the divisional police commander at his office at Tafo on Thursday January 27, 2011.
At the said meeting, the police commander, who was accompanied by the divisional crime office, was alleged to have advised the victim’s family to opt for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).
The police, according to sources, however, stated that if the family insisted on pursuing the matter to its logical conclusion, then the police would be ready to furnish the Attorney General’s Department with the details of the matter for the appropriate advice.
Unable to take a definite decision on the matter without the consent of the rest of the family, Nana Kwantabisa was said to have told the police to give them sometime before responding to the request on Friday morning.
The family, the paper learnt, categorically told the police on Friday afternoon that they were not in support of any amicable settlement and that the case should be allowed to proceed to its logical conclusion.
When the divisional police commander was contacted to verify the gathered information, he said “since the case unfolded, you have been reporting on it without our input so I do not have anything to tell.”
Nana Agyeman was said to have secretly stormed the offices of Superintendent Kwaku Buar, the Tafo/Pankrono district police commander for his caution statement to be written on Wednesday evening after several efforts by the police to invite him proved futile.
Meanwhile, the boy’s family has petitioned the Attorney General’s Department, the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU), the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) and other bodies over the matter.
The former mayor of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) allegedly detained Aaron Akyem Djan, a form one pupil of the KNUST Junior High School (JHS) in his house for almost four hours for allegedly beating his five-year-old son, Nana Kwame on a taxi on their way home from school.
The former major, Daily Guide learnt, fired several gun shots into the air to ostensibly put fear in the young boy who was already traumatised by the experience he went through.
After several pleas from the taxi driver and other high-profile personalities in the area failed to free young Aaron from the clutches of Mr. Agyeman, the form one pupil regained his freedom when the former’s sister finally intervened at about 8.30 pm.