JOURNALIST, OTHERS ARRESTED

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The Police in the Ashanti region have arrested four persons including a media practitioner with Atinka FM, an Accra-based private radio station, Anthony Antwi-Otoo, for allegedly conspiring to blackmail and extort an amount of 300 thousand Ghana Cedis from the Chief Executive Officer of the Peace and Love Hospital, Dr. Mrs. Beatrice Wiafe Addai. 

The other three who have also been arrested are Mike Osei Bobie Kesse, a Records Officer and Videographer at the Hospital, Prince Kwarteng, a musician living at Tabora in Accra and Awuni Azure popularly called Kwame Isaac, also a musician staying at Agona-Bobikumah.

The other suspect in the case, Marcus Kofi Otabil, who is also said to be a journalist, is however on the run and being looked for by the Police for arrest. 

The Police were able to retrieve from the suspects, 27 Patients’ private confidential Folders from the Hospital. 

Speaking to journalists in Kumasi, the Deputy Ashanti Regional Police Commander, ACP Ampofo Duku, explained that the matter was reported to the Police by the Accountant of the Peace and Love Hospital.

 According to the Deputy Police Commander, sometime last year, the Records Officer and Videographer of the Hospital, Mike Osei Bobie Kesse, informed the other suspects that the Hospital’s branch in Accra was unaccredited by the National Health Insurance Authority but operated as an accredited facility. 

ACP Ampfo Duku said the suspects in the case conspired to defraud the Chief Executive Officer of the Hospital. Subsequently, Mr. Kesse was asked to steal some of the Patients’ confidential private Folders to be used as the basis to demand the money from the CEO.

 Mr. Kesse succeeded in stealing 27 of the folders from the Hospital and gave them to Prince Kwarteng, the media practitioner, who in turn handed the folders to another journalists, Marcus Kofi Otabil, currently on the run.
 
 According the ACP Ampofo Duku, Mr. Otabil, upon receipt of the folders, called the CEO on phone threatening to publish the alleged damaging information and demanded that the CEO pays an amount of 300 thousand Ghana Cedis into the private bank accounts of the accomplice journalist, Otoo in Accra. 

The Police Officer noted that after several demands by the group, they decided to collect fiscal cash from the CEO for which they arranged to meet her at Assin Manso in the Central region for the payment of the money in exchange for the folders. 

The complainant in the case then reported the matter to the Kumasi Zongo Police who accompanied the CEO the agreed location.

 It was after they suspects had collected the money from the CEO that the police arrested some of the suspects while others managed to escape.   

They have since been remanded in Prison custody by a Kumasi Circuit Court.

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