NEWS > 03 November 2006

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AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
03 November 2006

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Ghana: Police Personnel Need P

A front-page news article which appeared in the Ghanaian Chronicle of November 1, 2006 (actually the Chronicle's website mis-dated the preceding as September 2, 2006) detailed the patently embarrassing case in which the German father of a 17-month-old Ghanaian toddler was apparently abducted and taken out of the country with the tacit complicity of some Tema municipal police personnel.

But what is even more eerily depressing is the fact that the toddler, Master Jeremy Yaw Slomski, was taken out of the country and transported into the Federal Republic of Germany without the knowledge and consent of Ms. Rose Hackman, the toddler's custodial mother.

According to the Chronicle story, the toddler's absentee father, Mr. Ralf Slomski had flown in from Germany following an anonymous tip-off indicating that his little son was not being properly taken care of. And, indeed, when Mr. Slomski arrived in Ghana, he discovered, to his dismay, that his son had been placed in the care of a nanny by his mother, who would later claim to have taken a short, day-long trip to an unspecified destination.

Thereupon, Mr. Slomski had reportedly taken little Jeremy Yaw Slomski to the Tema police and lodged a complaint of parental neglect, on the part of Ms. Rose Hackman, the toddler's mother, in her absence.

What followed next is quite fascinating in a professionally embarrassing manner; for rather than instructing Mr. Slomski to petition a legitimate Ghanaian court of law for prompt redressing of his grievance, the personnel of the Tema Regional Police Department had, quite inexplicably, taken the toddler's father to the German Embassy in Accra, some twenty miles away and, together with some Embassy personnel, asked Mr. Slomski to undertake not to slip the toddler out of the country until the appropriate legal procedure had been observed.

Of course, knowing fully well that the personnel of the Tema Regional Police Department could judicially not tell the location of their right hands from their left, decided to spirit his toddler out of the country on the very day that Mr. Slomski had lodged his complaint (October 17, 2006).

What is also embarrasingly fascinating is that Mr. Slomski had been ordered to hand in his passport and other travel documents, as part of his undertaken. Interestingly, however, the passport, which was later discovered to contain no Ghanaian entry visa, had not been spot-checked by the police officer who took custody of the same. And to-date, personnel of the German Embassy and Consulate have refused to answer pertinent questions posed them by the news and editorial department of the Ghanaian Chronicle, on the quite reasonable grounds that such compliance would violate a German statute, even though the consular officer of the German Embassy reportedly claims to be religiously poised to collaborating with the relevant and legitimate Ghanaian authorities in order to bring Mr. Ralf Slomski to book.

But that some personnel of the Tema municipal police department had woefully failed even the most minimal test of their profession by not asking Mr. Slomski as to whether the German native made any financial or material contributions towards the comfortable upkeep of the toddler, whose welfare he appeared to be so much concerned about, boggles the imagination. But then, again, in presuming to privilege the authority of the German Embassy over that of a legitimate Ghanaian court of law, or even the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs, the concerned Tema police personnel have seriously compromised Ghana's national security apparatus.

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Article sourced from

AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA03 November 2006

Ghana: Police Personnel Need P

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AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
03 November 2006