ANOTHER MURDER IN TEMA (Page 1B )

26/06/08
Story: Mary Mensah
Unknown assailants on Tuesday night ambushed the manager of the Total Filling Station at La, gunned him down in his house and escaped without taking anything from him.
The deceased, Solomon Lamptey-George, 69, and his wife had just returned to their home at Tema Community 11 after the close of work when the incident occurred.
Mr Lamptey-George was still behind the steering wheel, while his wife, who had come down to open the gate, was first attacked by the assailants, who were wielding machetes and guns.
They then approached the deceased in his car and, without demanding anything, shot him in the forehead and ran out of the house.
According to Stephen Lamptey-George, a son of the deceased, who also works at the filling station, on Tuesday his father officially handed over the management of the station to officials of Total and left for the house about 5:30 p.m. with his wife, Madam Beatrice Dowuona, who is his (Stephen’s) stepmother.
Stephen said he usually accompanied his parents home but on Tuesday he had other businesses to attend to so he asked them to take the lead.
He said about 8.00 p.m. he had a call from his stepmother that his father had been shot by three men.
Stephen said he rushed home and his stepmother informed him that when they reached the house, she got out and opened the gate, after which his father drove into the compound.
Madam Dowuona told Stephen that as she was about to close the gate, two young men, one wielding a machete and another a gun, pushed her and opened the gate. Another also jumped the wall into the compound and shouted, “Where is the money?”, to which she replied that she had no money.
After that, Stephen said, the assailants turned their attention to Mr Lamptey-George, who was still sitting in the car, and shot him on the forehead.
He said his stepmum started screaming and the men ran out of the house.
The Tema Regional Crime Officer, Chief Superintendent J. Dogbeda, confirmed the incident and said the body of the deceased had been deposited at the Police Hospital mortuary awaiting autopsy, while investigations continued to ascertain whether it was a robbery attack or otherwise.
He said nothing was taken from the car, adding that an amount of Gh¢1,200, mobile phones and other valuables were all intact in the car.
Early last year, two men, the then Deputy Managing Director (Operations) of the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), Mr Rokko Frempong, and a retired officer of the Public Works Department (PWD), Nii Kwartey Quartey, were gunned down under similar circumstances in Tema.