Reports say police officers stormed the chief’s palace on Thursday, April 20, 2023, to retrieve skeletons of exhumed human bodies.
According to starrfm.com.gh, the bodies were exhumed from the royal cemetery in the community after it was reportedly sold to an investor by Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin to be used for the construction of a fuel station.
It is reported that the bodies which were exhumed included those of the late chiefs and royals.
Two freshly buried bodies were also exhumed. One of the fresh corpses has been reburied while the other has been kept at the Suhum Government Hospital morgue.
“However, the Gyaasehene of Amanase, Obenfo Addo Agyekum who doubles as Acting Chief of the community decided to keep the exhumed skeletons of late chiefs of the community in a room at the palace.
“This created uproar in recent times among some royal family members and residents.
“Police invited the chief to write his statement about the incident on Thursday.
“Subsequently, the Police CID stormed the palace to evacuate the skeletons to the morgue after minutes of back and forth with the Gyaasehene and some of his sub-chiefs,” starrfm.com.gh reports.
Explaining why he kept the exhumed skeletons, Obenfo Addo Agyekum said: “The cemetery has been sold to an investor as a result we have to exhume the bodies. So Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin himself ordered that the bodies be exhumed to enable the investor to develop the land so we held a community durbar, and invited everybody including pastors, and opinion leaders to discuss the matter.
“So after exhuming the bodies we realized we have to create a new royal cemetery to rebury skeletons of the late Chiefs. We tried several times to get earmarked land for that purpose but were unsuccessful so we decide to keep the skeletons in a room here at the palace until we get the cemetery to rebury them. We had two fresh bodies which we sent to Suhum government hospital but we managed to bury one, the other body is still at the morgue”.
The Chief was invited to the Suhum Police CID for interrogation over the matter.