Photos: Coffin buried in front of a chief’s palace is exhumed after a court order

A family that buried their dead relative in a grave in front of the palace of the chief of Amamoley has exhumed the body following a court order.

This was after the Asofan District Court ordered that the police, together with the Ga-North District Assembly, exhume the remains of one Quainnor.

“It is hereby ordered that the police and the Ga- North District Assembly are to exhume the human remains of Quainnor Tetteh, and bury same in a place slated by the District Assembly for burial,” the court order stated.

The order from the court also said that all costs that pertain to this exercise should be borne by the accused persons in the case, the family of Quainnor Tetteh.

“Cost of exhumation to be borne by the accused persons,” the order, signed by the John Krampah Otoo, the court registrar, said.

Background:

The Chief of the Amamoley Traditional Area, Nii Commey Odaanu II, told Ghana Web in an interview, that there had been claims that he was the one who killed the deceased, Quainnor Tetteh.

He added that the people also insisted that since that was the case, they had every right to have him buried right in front of his house.

“Early March, I was in my room when I heard some noise, with people shouting, I knew there were funerals in town, so I suspected it would be a funeral. So, was just looking through my window and I saw a group of people in front of my house, digging a trench.

“I asked myself, what was going on, and from the look of things, the way they were holding weapons in their hands, it seemed like they were prepared to stand against whoever confronts them against what they were doing.

“Before a human being will be buried, they need to take burial permit before that is done, even at the burial ground. So, I decided to go to the Environmental Protection Agency and ask them if they were the people who gave them the permission to bury the body at the point they were burying it.

“One Nii Ashietey and Ishmael Addo, and I know a lot of them by name and by faces, I could not question them, but I called the police so they could ask them why they were doing that. So, when the Environmental Protection Agency intervened, then they told them that I was the one who killed the deceased, so, that is their right to bury the person in front of my house,” he explained.

The police, however, tried to stop the people from going ahead, but they also refused to comply.

The chief eventually asked that the men are arrested because there is a designated cemetery in the community, and he did not understand why they had to come and bury a body at a point that serves as a playground for children.

The police then advised that he takes the case to court.