The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has petitioned the Police Administration to investigate the circumstances leading to the death of Bismark Bebli, the Editor of The Daily Telegraph.
Bebli died on his birthday, January 13, 2017, when he was knocked down by a ‘trotro’ in front of the Kasoa Police Station.
The petition addressed to the acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu, stated that the investigation was necessary to establish the facts surrounding the accident.
At the time of the accident, a policeman was said to be checking on the car documents and licence of Bebli.
Unprofessionally
The petition said reports reaching the GJA indicated that the police acted rather unprofessionally, out of negligence and without sympathy, resulting in the death of the journalist.
At the one-week observation of Bismark Bebli’s tragic passing, the family of Bismark also made a passionate appeal to the IGP to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.
Crushed to death
The family of the late editor maintained that the death of Bismark was as a result of the unprofessional conduct of the Kasoa Police, who were on road checks in front of the police station on January 13, 2017.
An Awutu Breku-bound commercial bus, known in local parlance as ‘trotro’, with registration number GE 8252-12, crushed the former editor to death when he stepped out of his car after the police had stopped the car he was driving for inspection around 1 p.m.
The policeman who had stopped Bismark’s vehicle was also knocked down.
However, reports have it that while Bismark, who sustained severe head injuries, was left unattended to for a long time before being taken to the Kasoa Polyclinic for treatment, the injured police officer was attended to quickly and taken to a referral hospital for attention.
Brake failure disputed
While the police initially attributed the cause of the accident to brake failure, a woman, who claimed she was on the trotro on the day of the accident, disputed that claim.
According to the woman (who wants to remain anonymous for now), upon reaching the police station, “a policeman beckoned the driver of the trotro to stop and as soon as he slowed down, the policeman jumped into the front seat of the vehicle and ordered the driver to drive to the compound of the police station, but the driver resisted fiercely.
Struggle with driver
This resulted in a struggle between the driver of the trotro and the policeman as both held on to the steering wheel; while the policeman was steering into the yard, the driver was also steering it out of the yard.
As the struggle between the driver of the trotro and the policeman persisted, the vehicle veered off the road towards the journalist and the policeman and ran over them.
According to the eye witness, the police at Kasoa rushed to the aid of their colleague and quickly moved him to a referral hospital, while the journalist was left unattended to with severe head injuries and broken limbs.