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Asylum-seeker claims Ghana President led harassment campaign

Fran Abrams,Westminster Correspondent
Sunday 03 September 2000 19:00 EDT
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The former fiancé of the Ghanaian President's daughter is seeking asylum in Britain, alleging that he was subjected to an extraordinary campaign of harassment when his engagement ended.

The former fiancé of the Ghanaian President's daughter is seeking asylum in Britain, alleging that he was subjected to an extraordinary campaign of harassment when his engagement ended.

Human rights campaigners will press ministers to raise the case with President Jerry Rawlings, who visits Britain this week. Amnesty International has backed Selasse O'Sullivan Djentuh, who says he was abducted and beaten by presidential guards after ending a two-year relationship with Mr Rawlings' daughter, Zanetor.

The guards shaved Mr O'Sullivan Djentuh's head with a broken bottle and told him the President had ordered them to kill him and dump his body in the sea, he said in his application for asylum in Britain.

Mr O'Sullivan Djentuh's parents were arrested when they tried to find him, and last week were both given suspended prison sentences for assaulting a guard. His mother says two of Mr Rawlings' bodyguards held a gun to her chest and told her that both she and her son would vanish. Two months before the abduction, the 23-year-old was knocked off his motorbike by a truck and seriously injured.

His mother was warned by police not to pursue inquiries about the truck driver's identity. Although the driver had pulled out across his path after signalling him to pass, Mr O'Sullivan Djentuh was convicted and fined for traffic offences relating to the incident.

Lord Avebury, vicechairman of the all-party parliamentary Human Rights Group, has written to Barbara Roche, a Home Office minister, and Peter Hain, a Foreign Office minister, about the case.

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