Graphic reporter lodges complaint against police and church members over alleged assault

A reporter with the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Ms Della Russell Ocloo, has lodged a formal complaint of assault against 15 congregants of the Glorious Way Church at Sakumono, founded by Prophet Badu Kobi.

Ms Ocloo, who is a Tema Regional correspondent of the GCGL, also included two policemen in the complaint lodged at the Sakumono Police Station last Sunday.

The journalist was allegedly manhandled by some security details of the church and two policemen when she went to the church last Sunday to cover a publicised demonstration by some women against Prophet Kobi for comments he made against women of certain ethnic backgrounds.

Ms Ocloo is said to have taken a video of the congregants kneeling and holding the shoes of Prophet Kobi for him to bless them during the service.

Some of the congregants allegedly rained insults on her and threatened to beat her if she did not delete the said video, but the police have explained that Ms Ocloo was whisked away to the Sakumono Police Station to save her from potential harm.

Ms Ocloo’s account

According to Ms Ocloo, she was spotted by one of the security men at the church, whose name she gave as Amofa, when she was taking the video.

The said Amofa reportedly walked her out of the auditorium and, when they got outside, asked her to delete the video, but just when she was about to do so, their interactions attracted other members of the church and about 15 men reportedly surrounded her.

“One woman actually brought out a baton with a nail on it and said: ‘Ah, she is alone. Even if we hurt her, no one will know about it. Let’s terrify her to send that as a warning to the others’,” she narrated.

Ms Ocloo said she was saved by a man who said he was a national security operative who approached her and asked for her identity card.

Having verified her identity, the man also asked her to delete the video but before she could do that, Amofa – who had earlier left the scene – returned with two policemen to effect her arrest.

According to the reporter, the policemen from the Sakumono Police Station tried to handcuff her but she volunteered to walk to their car herself.

She said on her way to the car, the women who had earlier threatened her also walked towards her.

Ms Ocloo said apart from the psychological trauma she went through, not just at the hands of the church members but also at the hands of the two policemen who took her to the police station, she felt pains in her left wrist where the men and the police both tried to wrest her phone from her before she was sent to the police station.

Police station

Ms Ocloo said when she got to the Sakumono Police Station, the station officer requested to have access to her phone, which she declined.0

The station officer, she said, kept interrogating her but she responded that she would only talk in the presence of her lawyer.

Finally, a police investigator gave her his phone, which she used to call her husband.

According to her, it was after the arrival of her husband and another friend that she wrote her statement, after which she was allowed to go home.

Police reaction

Meanwhile, the police have reacted to the incident and explained that Ms Ocloo was whisked away to the Sakumono Police Station to save her from potential harm.

The Public Relations Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Ms Effia Tenge, told the Daily Graphic that some church members called the police after Ms Ocloo refused to hand over her phone to them.

According to her, the police rushed to the scene, rescued Ms Ocloo and took her to the Sakumono Police Station.

She said at the police station, the journalist did not hand over her phone and also did not write her statement, stressing that she insisted on speaking to her lawyer first.

DSP Tenge said it was after the arrival of some persons related to the reporter that she gave her statement to the police after which she was released.