The Commanding Officer of 4 Battalion, Lt Col Kwasi Ware Peprah, says the soldier who was seen kneeling aiming to shoot during the protest in Ejura did not fire his gun nor injure anyone.

Speaking before the three-member committee investigating the disturbance, which also led to the injury of four others on Wednesday, he said that the soldier only fired warning shots prior to kneeling. 

He explained that although kneeling may be a position for firing, it can be adopted when soldiers want to scare away the crowd they are dispersing.

You can actually see a soldier at 0:56 seemingly kneel and take aim at the fleeing crowd...which is not how to fire a warning shot. https://t.co/JqSCKrzGRR

— Nana Kofi Quakyi, MPH (@nkquakyi) June 29, 2021

“As a matter of fact, the direction of the man who knelt was such that no casualty came from that side. He didn’t fire. He fired only warning shots, but when he went down, he did not fire,” Lt Col Peprah said.

He said that sitting, kneeling and squatting are all different firing positions soldiers adopt to suit them; thus, taking a knee does not mean the soldier did anything out of the ordinary.

“There is a procedure in dispersing crowds. The first is a verbal warning; the second is to cock your weapons to signal to the crowd that ‘you are about to fire’, and the third is to fire warning shots. But the signal to scare them includes the kneeling,” Lt Col Peprah added. 

A three-member committee has been set up after President Akufo-Addo gave the Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, 10 days to provide a detailed report of the inquiry, which also led to the death and injury of some residents in Ejura.

The deceased met their untimely death while demonstrating against the murder of their colleague, Ibrahim Mohammed, also known as Kaaka, which had occurred a few days before the disturbance.

Meanwhile, Lt Col Peprah stated that the aim of the military when they got to the scene was not to kill.

According to him, if that was the intention of the security personnel, “we would have gotten not less than 100 people dying. It is just unfortunate [people died].”