Fourteen years after the disappearance of L/Cpl Michael Adamtey Odonkor, his mother is still appealing to the Ghana Police Service to issue a formal report on the matter.

According to Elizabeth Teiko Odonkor, aged 69, the declaration of the status of her son, if dead or alive, will enable the family to perform the necessary customary rites.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Madam Odonkor said a finality on the issue is long overdue.

Manye (Queen Mother), as she is called, said the family can only move on when the truth comes out,

“Without the police telling me anything, I feel incomplete, especially now that his father also died six years ago,” she added.

Background

Number 38222 L/Cpl Michael Odonkor Adamptey, bodyguard of then Director General of Police Operations and later the Inspector General of Police (IGP), John Kudalor, in the morning of the 22nd of September 2009, mysteriously disappeared from the Tema Newtown police barracks and has since not been seen.

Years later, in 2011, excavation for a planned construction in Tema Newtown resulted in the exhumation of human parts believed to be the remains of the disappeared bodyguard.

The said remains were sent to the Police Crime Laboratory for tests to ascertain whose remains were excavated.

Upon request by the FSL, the parents of the missing policeman were transported from Opesika in the Yilo Krobo Municipal Assembly to the facility, where the required blood samples were obtained for the DNA process to commence.

However, the said scientific analysis could not be undertaken due to the non-availability of the required reagents to run the test. It could, however, be done outside the country.

Since then, and even though the installation is well-resourced now to conduct the DNA tests, the much-needed report by the laboratory on the bones has not been out for the investigators to arrive at a conclusion.