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Investigations conducted by Today have revealed that some senior military officers of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) are using their positions to brutalize civilians who have legally acquired lands from East Dade Kotopon Trust at the Trade Fair Site in Accra. Scores of individuals who have legally acquired lands at Trade Fair Site told Today that the marauding military officers carried out the assault on the orders of a Group Captain of the Ghana Armed Forces, Wing Commander Frank Hansen, who had made himself a self-acclaimed land owner of the lands at the Trade Fair Site. The land owners told Today that the military officers who were fully armed with guns often maltreated private land owners together with their workers. Underground scouting by the paper further revealed that journalists who had gone there to report on the military excesses were never spared either. For instance, a crew of Amansan Television (ATV) in Accra who went to the site a couple of weeks ago to ascertain the situation, our investigations uncovered that the crew was physically assaulted by soldiers on the orders of Wing Commander Hansen. The assault on the journalists subsequently led to the damage of the eardrum of the camera man of the crew, Laud Selikem �Dei Sekyi. Narrating the incident Mr. Selikem -Dei Sekyi told Today that when the ATV crew got to the site they saw armed military men guarding the land. He continued that immediately the soldiers saw them one of them approached them and asked them of their mission. He said before he could answer the said soldier he asked him to give his camera he was at that time hiding to him. And he added that when he refused to hand over his camera to him the soldier started slapping him. The rest of the crew including a female reporter, Regina Woode he said were also threatened. He went on to say that when they saw that the situation was getting serious they took to their heels and went to the La Police station where he and the crew lodged a complaint. He said upon reaching the police station he was asked to write his statement before a police medical form was given to him to take to a hospital. He added that he then went to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust hospital at Osu in Accra for treatment where a doctor told him that his eardrum had been affected as the result of the slap. Today was further informed that apart from the injuries sustained, the military officers seized the cameras and recorders of the ATV crew who had been assigned to investigate the matter and not even the intervention of La Police who had gotten hint of the brutal incident could deter the rampaging army officers. The officers of La Police who had gone there to save the situation were even chased out by the military men all on the orders of Wing Commander Hansen. Speaking in an interview with Today one of the private land owners, Nana Kweku Nduom, accused Mr. Hansen of forcibly taking possession of lands by private individuals who had legally acquired lands at the site. It was also observed that most of the lands acquired by private individuals had been legally registered at the Lands Commission. �I paid cash for my land in 2009 and have documents from the East Dade Kotopon Trust and a Title Certificate from Lands Commission that state that I am the current owner,� Nana Nduom stated. He, however, debunked the claims by the military officer [Wing Commander Hansen] that he represented the family that owned some of the lands and thus the family had secured judgment against Lands Commission and the Trust was neither here nor there. �I have seen some court documents but there is nothing that refers to Mr. Hansen as an individual and there is nothing that refers to me [Nana Kweku Nduom] as a land owner. I don�t know how he knows this family but he seems to think that, even without any documents, he has the right to do whatever he wants on the land. ��we have involved the police in this issue on several occasions � most recently, I have been made aware that someone at the Police Headquarters in Accra is reaching out to the military officers since the police witnessed several military men demolishing structures being done on the land� he added. That information, according to Mr. Nduom reached him on Monday October, 20, 2014 that some people from the military were heard saying that �even though we [military officers] don�t have documents we will not allow them [individual land owners] to build on these lands.� He stressed that: �The issue here is that the military exists to protect the interests of Ghana and its citizens � it [Armed Forces] was not established to protect personal businesses of �big men� in society, even if it is Wing Commander like Mr. Hansen, such an act is illegal.� According to Mr. Nduom, his personal investigations suggested that Mr. Hanson might be connected to the seat of government -Flagstaff House. And if that was true he asserted it was a big issue adding �I was surprised that someone connected to President John Dramani Mahama was engaged in this sort of act.� The amount of money spent on police officers and land guards he noted was equally amounting to the original price of the land at the Trade Fair site.. Mr. Nduom pointed out that the court case which had been reported severally by this paper was still being litigated saying that the last time he heard, the court had adjourned the case indefinitely pending further investigations. He claimed that while he had genuine documents of the land, Mr. Hanson did not have any single document. �Even if he did have one, there is a system in place to handle these issues and that system does not involve the military.��even if we had no documents it would still be wrong to send the military to assault our workers and destroy property,� he intimated. Meanwhile, earlier when Today contacted Wing Commander Frank Hansen he confirmed that he had deployed his men [soldiers] to guard the site. He claimed he had all the necessary documents covering the land. He therefore advised anyone including Mr. Nduom who had bought land from the East Dade Kotopon Trust at the Trade Fair site to go to them and resolve the issue.