A contingent of heavy-armed police and immigration officers in the early hours of Friday July 22, stormed the private residence of Mr Sam Bennett, the Managing Director of Eusbett Hotel Limited in Sunyani and left the entire family in serious emotional trauma.

Numbering more than 20, the security officers, who wielded guns, surrounded the premises of the family house, located within the enclave of the Eusbett Hotel, a situation, according to the family lawyer, that was contrary to Article 18 of the 1992 constitution.

Accordingly, the Bennett family, an affluent and a well-known household has threatened to activate process in court against the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr George Akuffo Dampare and Kwame Asuah Takyi, the Comptroller General of the Ghana Immigration Service over what they described as the unlawful and unacceptable invasion of their private residence without any court or police order.     

Describing the incident as unfortunate, Mr Joseph Addae Akwaboa of the Asempa Chambers, a Sunyani-based legal firm and counsel, told Journalists in Sunyani that the “entire family is now traumatized by the action of the security operatives”.

"In fact, I don’t know who ordered the officers to invade my client's private residence without any apparent reasons, but I think the IGP and the GIS have to answer some questions in court. We can’t accept such unprofessional conduct of some of these security operatives to continue because Ghana is not a lawless country neither under a dictatorship”, he said.

"He said though the family had a civil case pending at the Sunyani High Court, which verdict was expected to be passed this morning, “there has not been any ruling or order in the case pending in court. So even if there has been any ruling ex-party or whatever ever you don’t just bring the police without any court official to my client house, to do what”.

“You don’t keep your ruling and you just pull a surprise on anybody. Because as we sit here we have not been served with any ruling on any pending case before court”, Mr Akwaboa added.

Though, Mr Akwaboa said it was unethical to give commentaries on cases pending judgement before the court, “in this case you are seeking to register a foreign judgment coming from a county court in the UK and we have opposed vehemently to that application”.

“So, I don’t see why the police and immigration should invade this house. My brother you see there are laws in this country and per Article 18 of the 1992 constitution, you can’t just invade somebody’s house, invade his privacy without any just course”, Mr Akwaboa lamented.

“The conduct of the security operatives is very bad, and so we are also going to activate a process in court against the IGP and GIS to come and prove to the court upon what authority they invaded my client house because when we enquired the security men had nothing, no order from the court”

“They just came in immigration and police vehicles, surrounded the house of my client, as if she is a criminal and they were looking for her. This conduct of the officers is so bad and we are not going to sit down, but we are going to act on our rights, and I assure you very soon you will see what happened in this matter”, Mr Akwaboa added.

Source: Ghana/Sompaonline.com/K. Peprah