Government did no wrong in accepting detainees : Hanna Tetteh
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Hanna Tetteh, says the government did no wrong in taking the decision to accept the two Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Advertisement
Concerns have been raised about why the President decided to accept Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby without consulting Parliament.
Major stakeholders including the Christian Council and other religious and pressure groups have criticised the decision.
One of such groups, OccupyGhana, has threatened to go to court over the matter.
But in an interview with 3FM, an Accra-based radio station, Ms Tetteh insisted that the government did not err in taking the decision.
“This decision is not illegal. We have an Executive Presidency. Once it became a matter that was effectively a national security decision, it was within the purview of the President to take that decision,” she said.
Ms Tetteh explained that Ghanaians were not informed about the arrival of the detainees because it had become a national security issue which was beyond the mandate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.
“At some point in time of the discussions, the issue became a national security discussion. There were some of those discussions I was not privy to,” she stated.
