Attafuah decries frequent transfer of Ken Kuranchie
Lawyers for incarcerated editor of the Daily Searchlight newspaper, Mr Ken Kuranchie can seek an injunction from the court to restrain the prison authorities from transferring him from one prison to the other on the basis of security, according to criminologist and human rights lawyer, Prof. Ken Attafuah.
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Mr Kuranchie has been transferred from about three prisons since the Supreme Court convicted of criminal contempt and sentenced him to 10 days imprisonment last week.
According to Prof Attafuah, the activities of the prison authorities could amount to an infringement on the fundamental human rights of Mr Kuranchie if his transfer is solely based on the purpose of security.
“It will be extraordinary in my view if the position was advanced that Mr Kuranchie is being transferred to protect him from somebody else. Once he is in the custody of the state there isn’t a way he can be protected from somebody else except prison officers themselves or prisoners,” he said on Accra-based Joy FM.
Continuous transfer
Prof Attafuah’s proposition follows media reports that Mr Kuranchie since his 10-day prison sentence began on Tuesday, July 2, 2013 had been transferred severally from one prison to the other and had been denied visitors, including his wife.
Mr Kuranchie was first sent to the Nsawam Medium Security Prison and was later transferred to the Ho Central Prison on Wednesday. However, reports have it that, on Friday he was moved from the Ho prisons to an unknown location, speculated to be the Kete Krachi prison in the northern part of the Volta Region.
Speaking on some media platforms, the Public Affairs Director of the Ghana Prison’s Service, DSP Courage Atsem gave the assurance that Mr Kuranchie was safe and that the prison authorities were following due process and regulation.
He explained that transfer of prisoners was guided basically by two principles- the security of the facility and the security of the prisoner and said both applied in the case of Mr Kuranchie.
However, Prof Attafuah explained that a prisoner could be transferred on the following reasons; when the facility he is sent to in the first instance is a temporary one; when the prisoner’s security is at stake from within the prison walls; when the prisoner has a health warrant that necessitates that transfer or when the presence of that prisoner raises disciplinary issues at the prison.
Anything short of these, he said, would be unpardonable in a modern constitutional dispensation, adding that the continuous transfer of Mr Kuranchie was “dangerous and unfair to the prisoner.”
By Jasmine Arku/Graphic.com.gh/Ghana
