Many questions remain to be answered about the death in February of Ghanaian citizen Allan Koomson. He was arrested by police in December 2009 for being an illegal immigrant in the Netherlands and ended up in hospital.
Although the Dutch authorities are refusing to go public on the cause of death, his family was offered damages. The cash, however, has never been paid. News of his case has only just surfaced following an article in The Chronicle, a Ghanaian newspaper.
Autopsy Mr Koomson’s body has now been buried in Ghana but his family are still determined to find out what happened to him. They are calling on the Ghanaian government to help get the Dutch authorities to release the autopsy report.
Ghanaian lawyer John Opoku says as well as the cause of death, the family want to know why they were offered damages by the Dutch authorities and why the amount was never discussed.
The Dutch foreign ministry confirms that a damages payment was offered because errors were made in communicating with the family in Ghana. The ministry declines to give further details, citing privacy considerations.
Work permit Mr Koomson had been living in the Netherlands for a decade when he was arrested on 9 December 2009 in Amsterdam for working without a permit. On 14 February, he phoned his sister, Cecilia Ankrah, in Leeds in Great Britain, to tell her of his detention and that he was going to be deported back to Ghana.
One week later, she was informed that he was on life support in a Dutch hospital. The message that he had died followed the next day.
In March, the Dutch authorities were preparing to transport Mr Koomson’s body to Ghana. Ms Ankrah was not granted a visa to travel from the UK to the Netherlands, making it impossible for her to see the autopsy report covering her brother’s death. It also meant she was unable to arrange for his personal effects to be sent on to Ghana.
Apology In April, the Dutch embassy in Accra made contact with Mr Koopson’s 80-year-old mother. She was told a representative of the Dutch government would be sent to Ghana to apologise and offer damages.
She was phoned on 17 May and told to come to Accra the next morning to receive the money. If she failed to turn up for the appointment, the damages would not be paid.
Her daughters explained that such a journey at short notice was too difficult for their mother. They asked the Dutch representative to come instead to Mrs Koomson’s home in eastern Ghana. The representative, named as Mr De Koning by the Ghanaian sources, agreed to phone at a later date to make an appointment. That was the last that they heard of him.
Other deaths Two weeks ago, 29-year-old asylum seeker Franklin Othieno from Kenya died in the detention centre at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The postmortem says he died of natural causes but his family want an independent autopsy to be performed before the body is returned to Kenya.
Bertha Puentes Acosta, a 74-year-old woman from Colombia, died after she was arrested for being in the Netherlands illegally. She died two weeks ago at the Ter Apel transit centre. She had been living on Dutch streets for the past two decades, earning cash as a street musician and flamenco dancer. Eduard Nazarski of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International questions whether the detention of such an old woman can be described as decent government policy.
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