JUDGMENT OF SARKODEE J.
The plaintiff claims the sum of ¢200,000.00 as general damages from the defendants jointly and severally for unlawful arrest and false imprisonment. The plaintiff is a timber contractor and the first defendant a road contractor. The second, third and fourth defendants are soldiers of the Ghana Armed Forces. At about 8.30 p.m. on 9 May 1976 whilst the plaintiff was sick in bed, the second, third and fourth defendants in military uniform, one of whom was armed, led by the first defendant entered the plaintiff's house at Sekondi and took him away to Accra, a distance of about 136 miles, arriving there roughly at about 2.30 a.m. What triggered off this unprecedented behaviour of the defendants was that the plaintiff had agreed to sell a caterpillar D. 7F tractor to the first defendant who had then been awarded a government contract. It appeared the plaintiff failed to deliver the caterpillar to the first defendant who as a result was unable to perform the contract. When the soldiers surrounded the house of the plaintiff he was with his family and some friends who had called to visit him. The action of the first defendant and the soldiers attracted the attention of the plaintiff's neighbours who came out of their houses as the plaintiff was being taken away.
The defendants say that they entered the plaintiff's house to invite him to the Castle, Osu, to collect the balance due to him out of the sale of [p.345] the caterpillar from the head of the Special Action Unit. The plaintiff had been paid ¢75,000.00 by the Bank for Housing and Construction out of the ¢100,000.00 the selling price of the caterpillar.
The plaintiff says further that when he was taken out of his house he was put in a guard-room at the Army Barracks, Apremdu, and later driven to the Castle, Osu, where he was detained in a cell till the following morning when he was put before Lieutenant-Colonel Tetteh, Head of the Special Action Unit, who after he had given a cheque to the plaintiff caused him to sign documents transferring the caterpillar to the first defendant. After the plaintiff had issued and signed the document he was released.
The plaintiff was made to travel in a car owned by the first defendant and driven by the first defendant's son. The plaintiff was made to sit between the driver and Warrant Officer Armah in the front seat.
Learned counsel for the plaintiff contended that the first defendant throughout directed and authorised the second, third and fou
