GBESE RIOTERS GRANTED BAIL

TEN people, including a woman, were each granted bail in the sum of ¢20 million with a surety yesterday by an Accra circuit court for rioting with weapons and causing unlawful damage to a police vehicle.
The accused persons, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, were alleged to have caused the offence during a ceremony to lift the ban on drumming and noise-making in Accra on June 6, this year.
They are alleged to have smeared the Gbese Palace with human excreta and also vandalised a police vehicle, with registration number GP 1421, belonging to the James Town District Police in their attempt to disrupt the ceremony.
They are Daniel Nii Armah Tagoe, a hairdresser, Obodai Torgbor and Daniel Klottey, both fishermen, Samuel Pappoe, a trader, Amos Afful and Isaac Addo, both students, and Otu Kometey, a toll collector.
The rest are Armah Tagoe, a fisherman, Kofi Kamaradeen, a tailor, and Emelia Nii Quaye, a trader.
The accused persons were remanded on their first appearance in court.
According to the facts of the case, as narrated by DSP Eric Amoako, on June 6, this year, the Accra District Police Commander, Superintendent Nana Afful, led a team of policemen to provide security at the ceremonial grounds at Gbese in connection with the lifting of the ban on drumming and noise-making in Accra.
On arrival, he said, the police observed that human excreta had been sprinkled all over the Gbese Palace and assistance was sought from the Ghana National Fire Service to clean the mess.
DSP Amoako said not quite long after that, a faction opposed to the incumbent Gbese Mantse arrived at the durbar grounds and hurled stones, broken bottles, human excreta, among other missiles, at the police and, in the process, the rioters caused damage to the police vehicle.
He said Kometey, who was a conservancy labourer at the Gbese main toilet, supplied the rioters with human excreta to smear the chief’s palace and other public places, while Pappoe was found to have concealed a kitchen knife and stones on his body.