Gay man arrested for own “safety” from mob attack

Police arrested a gay man in Ghana after a mob threatened to lynch him when his would-be lover turned him in to the local community.

According to Adom News, the unnamed man allegedly offered to pay a young man, Yaw Ansoh, to have sex with him in the town of Nkawkaw, in the south of the country.

Ansoh agreed but changed his mind at the last minute. “I…met him at an obscure place in the community but the moment he undressed, I panicked and took to my heels,” he told the radio station.

He went on to alert the community to the presence of a gay man in their midst, leading to a citizen’s arrest and his being handed over to the police.

The report described Ansoh as “the victim” and accused the gay man of “trying to rape” him.

District Police Commander Gyabeng Manu told Adom News that although officers arrested the gay man because he was in danger of being lynched by an angry mob, he could still be prosecuted.

Consensual gay sex is illegal in Ghana and carries a sentence of three years’ imprisonment.

While the man has been released on bail, Manu said that, “If we get the proper evidence and if we need to prosecute we will go ahead and prosecute.”

There have been a number of recent attacks and murders of people because of their suspected sexual orientation or gender identity by mobs in Ghana.

Last month, a group of youth threatened to “hunt down” lesbians and gays in a suburb of Ghana’s capital Accra.

There were also at least two violent incidents in February. In the first, a school pupil was killed by police after students rioted because they said that teachers were not clamping down on gay learners.

Ghanaian music event promoter Kinto Rothmans was also brutally beaten by a mob over claims that he had sex with another man.

In May 2014, there were reports that a group of youth in Accra killed a man they accused of being gay.