Two kids were not murdered — Police

Story: George Ernest Asare, Kumasi
14/03/08
Police investigations into the alleged murder of the two children whose bodies were found on a school field at Tafo/Pankrono in Kumasi have revealed that the children were rather trapped in a taxicab and suffocated to death
The Ashanti Regional Police Commander, Mr Seth Charles Oteng, who briefed the media about the latest developments on the death of the children, said an autopsy report by doctors gave the cause of death as “asphyxia due to suffocation”.
Speculations on the death of the children — Fatao Issaka and Kawusa Alhassan — aged three-and-a-half and two-and-a-half years respectively, were that they were murdered and their bodies dumped on the school field.
The children got missing on March 4, 2008 when they left their house to the Famous Basic School at Tafo Pankrono, 200 meters away, to watch the rehearsals of a march past by the schoolchildren, but never returned home until their bodies were discovered at dawn on March 5, 2008 by a public toilet attendant.
At a press conference in Kumasi on Tuesday, Mr Oteng ruled out any foul play and said their investigations had revealed that the children died through excessive heat when they were trapped in a taxi.
He explained that the taxi driver, one Mahawia Osman, parked the car at a mechanic shop and discovered the bodies when he went there to start the engine.
Mr Oteng said the bodies were at the back seat of the car when he reached the shop around 7p.m. on March, 4, 2008 and explained that fearing that he would be implicated in police investigations, the driver retrieved the bodies two hours later and deposited them 20 metres away.
According to Mr Oteng, the taxi driver was arrested through police investigations for failing to report the death of the children to the police before retrieving their bodies from the vehicle.
He said this was after the driver had admitted that he saw the bodies in the car and later retrieved them after he had conferred with the car owner.
He said the suspect had already been granted a police enquiry bail, pending further investigations into the case.
Mr Oteng said fingerprints experts also detected that the fingerprints found on both sides of the front glasses of the car were those of the deceased children, stressing that “the bodies had no marks to suggest that they were assaulted or strangled to death”.
He said there were scratches on the forehead and legs of Fatao Issaka, but doctors explained that they were normal, and could have occurred when he was struggling to get out of the car.