The suspected kidnappers
Two pals who demanded $3,000 to release a 14-year-old boy they kidnapped have been slapped with jail term by a circuit court at Juaben in the Ashanti Region.
Charles Appiah, 38, and Manasseh Fumi, 29, together with two others, pushed the boy into a car at Tech Junction on March 24, 2019.
The court, presided over by Abdul Yusuf Assibey, heard that the two locked the victim, a form two student of Moni Zion Junior High School (JHS), in a room in an abandoned two-storey building at Apatrapa, near Tanoso in the Kwadaso Municipality.
Charles pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and kidnapping and was sentenced to five and nine years’ imprisonment while his accomplice Manasseh was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for failing to report a felony.
Manasseh Fumi, a security guard at Living Waters Hospital at Ejisu, is to reappear on May 6, 2019 to continue his trial on conspiracy and kidnapping charges against him.
He told the court that he knew about the plan to kidnap the 14-year-old boy and waited for it to be executed before he informed law enforcement officers, an explanation the trial judge found to be untenable.
During the trial, the prosecutor, Inspector Victoria Mensah, told the court that the abductors called the boy’s grandmother and demanded $3,000 as ransom.
According to prosecution, the victim managed to untie the rope and shouted for help through a window which attracted the attention of a passerby who informed the police at Abuakwa.
She narrated that the convicts lured the victim with an iPhone and laptop to the Tech Junction from Kwamo in the Ejisu Municipality through one Felix who had previously struck acquaintance with him.
Inspector Victoria said Charles Appiah, Manasseh Fumi and Felix conspired to kidnap the 14-year-old in order to get dollars from the victim’s parents who are domiciled abroad.
Charles Appiah, a neighbour of the victim, sold the idea to the men who agreed to carry out the exercise after they had rented the abandoned apartment for GH?300 for the exercise.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi