The remains of a young man who was killed in a chieftaincy dispute last week have been exhumed from a mass grave in Kumasi on the orders of the police.

In a messy scene at the Tafo cemetery, mortuary Officials dug out the body and 19 others with which it had been buried, while mortuary attendants searched through the pile with the police standing by to identify Nana Osei’s body.

Police sources said the death was the subject of a criminal investigation and the body had been awaiting autopsy but mortuary attendants acting on the advice of doctors buried it along with others because as they put it, “decomposition was taking place”.

An enraged Ashanti Regional Police Commander, Frank Adu Poku described the action as illegal and added that “but for one or two reasons I would have ordered the arrest of the mortuary attendant and any other person connected with the illegal burial of the body”.

Mr Adu Poku said the body of the deceased had been at the morgue for only six days and stated that he did not believe anything warranted the illegal burial.

The deceased, Nana Osei, 25, was shot dead near the chief’s palace at Atwima Agogo in the Atwia Nwabiagya District of the Ashanti region on February 18 following the outbreak of the riots between factions of the chieftaincy dispute in the town.

The body was deposited at the morgue, awaiting autopsy.

Mr Adu Poku pointed out that in the case of such mass burials, the bodies must have remained at the hospital morgue for at least 28 days without anybody claiming them.

He noted that the illegal burial would have stifled investigations if the exhumation had not been ordered.

In his reaction to the story, the PRO of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kwame Frimpong said the police dumped the body at the morgue without taking steps to embalm it.

“The only left, leaving the body in a bad state in which it was brought,” he said.

Mr Frimpong said after five days decomposition set in and they had no option but to bury it.

He however denied that there was any law which stipulated that such burials could take place only after 28 days.

Source: Daily Graphic