Tears Flow For Clara

Relatives and sympathizers shed uncontrollable tears at the Police Hospital yesterday as they watched the remains of Clara Atampagram Kasei being bundled into an ambulance which carried her to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital at about 10am for an autopsy. Clara�s remains were referred from the Nsawam Government Hospital to the Police Hospital after it was rejected by the staff of that hospital who insisted on a police report before accepting it, since her husband, Raymond Kasei, claimed that she committed suicide. Dr. Kasei has since been provisionally charged for murder after police discovered there were distortions in his narration of the circumstances that led to his wife�s death in the early hours of last Monday. The lecturer, who is a graduate of the Bonn University, Germany, where he studied Watershed Hydrology, had carried the lifeless body of his wife who he claimed committed suicide by hanging to the Nsawam Hospital alone, without informing the relatives or the police. He neither shouted for help nor informed even his neighbours about the unfortunate incident. Even though the Amasaman police who are currently investigating the supposed homicide case have remained tight-lipped, DAILY GUIDE sources said situational report gathered from the crime scene by the police gave conflicting evidence of the lecturer�s account of the event. Clara�s remains, as shown in a photograph made available to DAILY GUIDE, showed a deep bruise on a portion of her neck, with another bruise between her thighs which looked as if she was flogged, while her lips remained as tight as glued, raising serious questions about the suicide story. Other pieces of evidence found were pieces of broken louvre blades, equally raising suspicions that the love-birds might have had a physical encounter before her death. Clara�s father, a retired BNI officer, Peter Leo Apingboruk, narrated how he had responded to a missed call only to find out that her daughter had allegedly committed suicide on Monday dawn. �I woke up around 5am to urinate. When I came back to my room, I had had a missed call so I called back. The recipient asked if I were home, to which I answered in the affirmative. From his voice, I knew it was my daughter�s husband Raymond. He bid me to come if I could, adding that Clara had locked herself up in the bedroom since the previous night.� Raymond, according to his father-in-law, had said that after a night of quarrel, he had dashed to the kitchen to reach for a stool on which he would sit in the bedroom for further discussion but his wife locked the door by the time he returned and had since refused to open it. He then pleaded with the father-in-law to call her but when he did, there was no response. He said Raymond, who is now resting with the police, then told his in-law, �I�ve managed to enter the room but I found out that she has killed herself.� Immediately, Clara�s father said, he had goose pimples all over him and began to shudder in fear so he could not continue the conversation, and rather called his elder daughter and son in Accra to go straight to Clara�s Damax Estate residence at Kuntunse, near Amasaman and check what the problem was. �If possible report to the police,� Mr Apingboruk ordered. When Clara�s elder sister and the brother visited the couple�s matrimonial home, they met no one. However, a call to Raymond led them to the Nsawam Government Hospital where they were met with the ugly truth that Clara had passed away moments ago before being bundled to the hospital. The body, according to sources, could not be carried by the two security persons on guard that fateful morning. The guards had insisted that the body was too heavy so they would have to wait for a third person to help but Raymond yelled at the guards, saying, �How weighty is this body? Even a small boy and I had carried it all alone into the car, how come the two of you cannot carry it?� But the guards stood their ground. And even when they did finally, the body, in its suspicious condition, was rejected by the hospital staffers who wanted a police report before depositing it in their morgue. Clara�s brother, who by then had gone to report the matter to the Amasaman Police, returned with a couple of police officers who could not rule out the chances of murder. On Wednesday November 9, 2011, Raymond was arraigned before a District Magistrate Court at Amasaman in the Ga West Municipality on provisional charges of murder. The magistrate refused him bail against the plea of his lawyers who thought a bail could be granted while investigations continued. He was remanded into police custody, to re-appear on Wednesday November 23, to allow police to carry out further investigations into the alleged murder case. Clara had earlier sent their two children to her mother-in-law at Tamale. The children have since remained there because Clara sought to go back to school for further studies. She however intended to join the children for the celebrations of the 5th birthday of her little girl who turned 5 yesterday, November 10, 2011 and not November 9 as reported earlier. Her remains had to be referred from the Police Hospital to the University of Ghana Medical School�s morgue at Korle Bu for an autopsy examination after the school showed an interest in the case.