Who Shot Kumbuor?

In a dramatic turn of events, Attorney General and Minister of Justice Dr. Benjamin Kunbour has denied ever being shot at by unknown gunmen in the infamous June 28, 2010 shooting incident where his VW Passat car with registration number GH4656 10 was riddled with bullet holes. Dr. Kunbour told Daily Guide in a telephone interview last Friday and Saturday that contrary to what was reported in the media at the time, �there is no where I have said I was shot at�. This was in view of police investigations which indicated that nobody shot at the then Health Minister but rather the gunshots that riddled his car was perhaps from him, since the gunshots emanated from the car, specifically from the driver�s side. After thorough investigations and forensic analysis of the bullet ridden car, only one suspect came to mind, and that was Dr. Kunbour himself. On June 28, 2010, an alleged assassination attempt on Dr. Kunbour, then Minister of Health, was widely reported in the Ghanaian media. He followed it up with interviews in which he claimed that some unknown assailants were after his life when they allegedly rained bullets on his car in a bid to snuff the life out of him. According to accounts at the time, he reportedly filed a statement with the police at the Cantonments Police Station and the National Security outfit, stating that on that fateful evening of Monday June 10, 2010, he was driving home in his VW Passat car with registration number GR 4656-10 and had just gone past the Labone Senior High School when he heard a strange object slamming into his car. According to the statement, he initially thought the object was a stone so he planned to stop and assess the impact, only to realize that the right side of his windscreen had been perforated by an object much sinister than a stone. Sensing a threat to his life, the minister allegedly sped off because he was sure it was a bullet that hit his car and not a stone. But Dr. Kunbour told Daily Guide that he had never made that statement to the police, even though he did not deny the bullet hole on the right passenger side of his car. Critics thought that his current denial of media reports on the incident in 2010, posed a lot of worrying questions: First of all, how did his windscreen get a 7mm-9mm caliber bullet hole? Did he report the discovery of the bullet hole to the police, and if he did, exactly what did he tell the police? Due to the seriousness of the incident, Dr. Kunbour, then Minister of Health, apparently forced the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police to conduct comprehensive investigations into the incident in July 2010. In a report signed by DSP Raymond Simpi, a forensic analyst at the Police Forensic Laboratory his conclusion was startling. The report stated that the bullet travelled from a trajectory that suggested it came from the driver�s side of Dr. Kunbour�s car; and also the bullet from a 7mm-9mm ammunitions was assessed to have travelled from within the car outwards and not vice versa, which was the initial impression given. From all indications, the gun could have been shot by Dr. Kunbour himself, since it came from the direction of the driver, but he told Daily guide, �I don�t carry a weapon�. According to him, there were several official oaths that would prevent him from disclosing the details relating to the mystery bullet hole. However, he thought the CID should have contacted him when they were conducting their forensic investigations, suggesting that he was not contacted. �I have not heard anything from the CID�, he said. The shooting incident happened at a time when it was alleged that former President Rawlings was under surveillance because he was the target of assassins. Therefore the incident promptly raised questions about why his close associate, Dr. Kunbour, might have been a target too. Daily Guide was reliably informed that due to the inconsistency in the sequence of events associated with the shooting, the Police was preparing to close in on Dr. Kunbour for him to answer some charges that might border on possessing fire arms, among others but before the Police could make a move, he was appointed Interior Minister in 2011 by President Mills, overseeing the Ghana Police Service, thereby stalling the process. It was believed that a docket on the matter was currently with Attorney-General�s Department, incidentally headed by Dr. Kunbour, giving the story a death knell.