The Sunyani Diocese of the Anglican Church has urged the public to ensure comments on the recent Abesim murder case remained factual.
It asked the Police to come out with the truth behind the crime.
“Failing this our honest intentions may lead to untrue and counter-productive consequences, which may unduly affect the very commendable efforts of the security agencies, investigating the matter,” the Diocese said in a press release.
A copy of the release, jointly signed by Venerable Martin A. Amankwah, Diocesan and Synod Secretary and Very Reverend Timothy Kankam Dwumfour, Dean, St Anselm Cathedral, was made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Monday.
According to the Diocese, the release which was in response to a video circulating on social media and linking the Church to the murder explained “the Church is unaware of any murders in and around any property it owns in Sunyani and surrounding areas over the years.”
Tragedy hit the farming community in the early hours of Saturday, August 21, 2021, when Richard Appiah, a popular local footballer, allegedly murdered his 12-year-old relative, with two others and kept the bodies in a room.
“The leadership of the Anglican Communion in Sunyani has picked up a sordid and unwarranted orogeny directed at the Anglican Church in Sunyani on social media in the last couple of days by a Journalist going by the name Kwasi Annan,” the statement said.
It explained “there is no Anglican Church or building owned by the Church in Abesim. The Church’s headquarters – St Anselm’s Cathedral is situated in a well-developed environment in Sunyani with no deliberate cultivated bushes around it”.
“The damnable inaccuracies without any hint of evidence in the emotionally charged presentation on TV by the said Journalist alone discredit his efforts.
The leadership of the Church considers it the height of a wicked and irresponsible calumny for the said Journalist to put forth in such an aggressive manner that the church has deliberately left the thick bush behind their temple, ostensibly to encourage crime, to wit ritual murder,” the statement said.
“There is no place in Sunyani called Apenkwaase where the Anglican Church has thick bushes close to its structure. The said ‘intelligence’ alleged to have been gathered is, to say the least, egregious”, it said.
The statement explained the church in the region and anywhere welcomed any investigations by the Police as suggested in the said video, saying the Church was ready to cooperate in any investigation.
