There was drama at the Italian Embassy in Accra Friday morning as a young man threatened to blow up the Embassy, located on the Switchback Crescent, Cantonments.

The Counter Terrorism Unit of the Ghana Police Service however, acted swiftly and bundled him away before he could actualize his threat.

The unnamed young man, said to be a visa applicant, had stormed the Embassy with a gas cylinder and a lighter ready to torch the place.

Superintendent Raymond Aggrey Fynn, Head of the Counter Terrorism Unit who led a team to arrest the man, along with his family including his wife, son and brother, told Graphic Online that the suspect had earlier in the morning been reported to have hurled stones into the Embassy compound amidst threats to blow it up.

“We understand he had a misunderstanding with the Embassy officials. When we came here earlier after the stone-throwing reports, he had left, only for him to return with gas and fire to attempt to carry out his threat”, he told Graphic Online.

A brother of the suspect broke down in tears as police vehicles drove the family to the CID Unit at the Police Headquarters.

Eyewitnesses

By-standers who witnessed the drama claimed the man had complained repeatedly of the Embassy’s refusal to return his documents, including birth and marriage certificates of his wife who had been refused the visa.

Their young son, however, had been granted the visa.

Another claim was that the man’s frustration had stemmed from the Embassy’s endorsement of his wife’s travelling documents in ways that rendered them ‘useless’.

“But how do you give a child visa and refuse his mother?” quipped one witness, who added, “Does it make sense or they want the child to go and stay alone?”

Help the police

When calm had been restored, Superintendent Raymond Aggrey Fynn found it an opportunity to counsel other visa applicants and members of the public who had gathered at the scene on their immediate responsibilities, safety and security in matters of police operations.

He said the entire drama could have been avoided had members of the public been vigilant enough to at least alert the police when the man walked by them with the cylinder and lighter threatening destruction.

Again, he said, most of the people were gleefully watching the unfolding drama at close quarters even as the police deployed to quell the threat, thereby putting themselves in harm’s way and that in such developing situations, even the police could be victims.

He said in such a situation, everyone needed to move as far away as they could to avoid becoming victims.

Source Graphic Online