Rawlings quizzed over murder allegations

Police have questioned former president Jerry Rawlings over his recent allegations that some ministers in Ghana's current government were involved in the serial killing of women that gripped the West African country between 1994 and 2001. Rawlings said last week he had information that 15 Ministers in President John Kufuor's cabinet had a direct hand in the murders of 34 women over a seven-year period.while he himself was head of state. Rawlings made the allegations at a public forum to commemorate the 24th anniversary of a coup that brought him to power for the first time on June 4, 1979. Police questioned Rawlings about his claims at his residence in Accra on Wednesday, but the former head of state refused to give any specific names. A spokesman for Rawlings said afterwards: "Mr. Rawlings said he will only reveal the names of those Ministers if the government will invite an independent investigator to conduct a lie-detector test on him and those implicated in order minimize the telling of lies in the case. If these conditions are accepted, he is ready to reveal the names today." Ghana's Inspector General of Police, Nana Owusu-Nsiah, said he was "profoundly disappointed with the utterances and conduct of the former president." He said in a statement that police had conducted thorough investigations over nine years, which eventually led to the arrest and capture of a serial killer, who pleaded guilty to murdering eight of the women. The police chief accused Rawlings of being obsessed with "chemical interrogations" and "lie-detector tests", which had very little significance in "real, dogged, painstaking criminal investigations." Police Sources told IRIN that the Ghana Police Service does not have a lie-detector. But they stressed that it was the civic duty of the former president to boldly come up with the truth on the serial killings if he had the interest of the country at heart. Rawlings made the allegations against leading members of Kufuor's ruling New Patriotic Party at a time when he is widely expected to be called to give evidence before Ghana's National Reconciliation Commission about the alleged torture and murder of political activists during his own period of nearly 20 years in power. The commission was set up by Kufuor's government last year to investigate allegations of human rights abuse during the long periods of military rule which Ghana has endured since independence from Britain in 1957. Rawlings ruled Ghana for several months after leading a coup in 1979. He came to power again in a second coup in 1982 and was subsequently elected president in 1992 and 1996. Rawlings chose not to contest the presidential elections of 2000 which brought Kufuor to power.