Private Legal Practitioner, Kwaku Paintsil says the decision to reverse the interdiction of some three senior officers by the Ghana Police Service is an embarrassment to the security agency.
This, according to Mr Paintsil, is because the Service should not have interdicted them in the first place based on an alleged leaked recording of a plot to remove the Inspector General of Police (IGP), which is now the subject of a parliamentary probe.
Speaking to kingdomnewsgh.Com the lawyer said the action could have been taken only after the Committee had concluded its investigations.
“I don’t know if it is the IGP or the Police Council that instructed the IGP to interdict the officers, but if it is coming from the IGP, then I think it is premature.
“He should have allowed this investigation to continue, and then we see the outcome, and if after that the officers had somehow misconducted themselves, then he would have called for a service inquiry.
“But where I sit, I don’t see any criminality in what they did, what one can say is that they misconducted themselves, but even that must be purely after investigation,” he explained.
Backing this stance, lawyer Paintsil said the Police Service could have conducted their own investigations before Parliament.
He also described the ongoing parliamentary probe as unnecessary.
“If they have reason to believe that some wrong has been done or some evidence that suggests indiscipline, then they don’t even have to wait for Parliament at all because under the Police Service Act, there is no requirement for them to wait for Parliament to finish its work.
And with all due respect to Parliament, it is my view that this parliamentary hearing is an unnecessary thing that need not have been done because, under the Police Service Act, the Police Council has a right and a duty to conduct this inquiry.”
The three police officers were interdicted on Thursday, September 6, after a leaked tape emerged with the content suggesting a plot to oust the IGP, according to a former NPP Northern Regional Chairman, Bugri Naabu, who claims he recorded the conversation secretly.
The officers are Director General Technical of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police (COP) Alex George Mensah, Supt. George Lysander Asare and Emmanuel Gyebi.
