Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper and veteran journalist, Kwesi Pratt, has narrated how he created a political “bomb” in his caution statement during his trial alongside the late Prof. Adu Boahen.
In 1992, Mr Pratt and Prof Adu Boahen, the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) late flagbearer, were charged by the military-led Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government over alleged plot to destabilise the government.
The veteran journalist revealed how his 30-page caution statement to the police saved them from serving jail terms. He attributed his statement, which exposed the military government’s atrocities, as the key factor in the case being dismissed upon his return from Togo.
Mr Pratt recalled detailing the PNDC government’s atrocities in his caution statement, noting that it would have been a formidable task for anyone to disclose the content in an open court.
In an interview with Samuel Attah-Mensah on Footprint on Channel One TV, Mr Pratt emphasised the need for his statement to have a profound impact on the case’s outcome, hence his deliberate crafting of a political “bomb.”
“I came back, and the trial was aborted. Yes. I knew that the trial could not end from the very beginning. I had been arrested from my house in Kotobabi. Prof. Adu Boahen was teaching in Legon, when he was picked up from the classroom, and we were taken to the CID headquarters. And we were cautioned and asked to write statements.
“Within 15 minutes, Prof. Adu Boahen had finished writing his statement. It took me hours to write mine. So, Prof. Adu Boahen kept pinching me all the time, saying, ‘what are you writing? You are writing too much. You are implicating us. Please stop. But I kept writing because I knew what I was doing.
“I was writing a statement in which nobody would dare read in an open court. I think I ended up writing about 20-30 pages. It took hours to write my statement and I was asking for more papers. In that statement, I had spoken about my experiences in guard room. The number of people who had been killed in the guard room and who killed them. Who will read such a statement in an open court? I was talking about cases of corruption which had come to my notice. And the PNDC secretary allegedly involved in and so on. I was not just writing a statement; I was creating a bomb. I told Prof Adu Boahen about my statement, and he was shocked.”
Mr. Pratt, a member of the Movement for Freedom and Justice, was actively involved in political activism. The trial was held at the National Public Tribunal, a special court established by the military regime to investigate economic crimes and political atrocities.
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