The New Patriotic Party’s Chairman for Gomoa West, Mr. Joe Donkor, has indicted the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for acting unprofessionally when the infamous news broke out that some unknown individuals where behind the Ghanaian gold which was impounded in Turkey.
According to Mr. Joe Donkor, he was apprehended and held behind bars for several days, upon tip-off that he had assisted an NDC financier by name Peter Kofi Bedzra to export the US$80 million gold consignment abroad.
Narrating the ordeal the BNI meted out to him in prison cells, Mr. Joe Donkor revealed on Okay FM that he was tagged a “political prisoner” by the BNI officers who arrested him and made to languish in a room full of blood thirty mosquitoes.
The Gomoa West NPP Chairman also established that he had no idea the private plane his company was working on, was going to be used by Peter Kofi Bedzra for a “dubious agenda”.
According to him, though he handles private planes at the port, he cannot give an in-depth detail on every business trip people made with the plane.
On Thursday March 14, 2013, Mr. Donkor stated that he received a call from a BNI operator who introduced himself as Philip and invited him over for interrogation. As a law-abiding citizen, Mr. Donkor noted that he drove his Range Rover with registration number JD 4444-13 to the BNI office in Accra to ascertain the reason for the invitation.
“At the reception I asked for the Director and they took me to his reception. There and then they arrested me and sent me to their office at the 37 Military Hospital for interrogation.
“All this time I didn’t know why I was there. They sought to know from me if I had any idea about the famous gold that was impounded in Turkey and if I had helped in smuggling it… They asked me if I had given information to the NPP or anybody about a matter I knew nothing about”, he said.
In the prison cells, Mr. Donkor disclosed that he was forced to feed on leftover foods such as “hard kenkey with super hot dry pepper and the head of a fried fish”. He divulged that the BNI operatives racially discriminated against indigenous Ghanaians but cared a lot about foreigners who were also behind bars.
He explained that he was personally forced to eat with his dirty palms whilst the BNI officers were more than willing to hand over the Chinese ‘wrongdoers’ with plastic spoons.
He indicated that on the day he was released, the BNI officials refused to hand over his Range Rover and told him the car keys were with their boss. Mr. Donkor noted that the move didn’t come as a surprise to him since he was aware of plots by certain elements in the NDC to confiscate all vehicles he had toiled for and purchased.
“…BNI has made it clear that if you are an NPP member in Ghana now, you can’t drive any nice car. But if you an NDC member who hasn’t offered your national service, you can rise up to become a state minister and ride in a limousine…when NDC assumed office in 2008, one of their women’s organizer wrote a letter to the BNI, informing them to seize all my cars because I trafficked cocaine. They accused President Kufour, Mr. Kwamena Bartels and Mr. Acheampong of aiding me with their cocaine monies”, he added.