Two men who use taxi cabs to rob unsuspecting passengers in Kumasi and towns in the Bekwai Municipality of the Ashanti Region of their money and possessions have been sentenced to a total of 100 years’ imprisonment.
A trader, Akwasi Frimpong aka Alhassan, 38, and his accomplice, Isaac Boateng, aka Okay, cabbie, 31, were convicted of conspiracy to rob and robbery by the Bekwai Circuit Court.
They were sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment in hard labour on each count.
The sentences are to run concurrently.
After an eight-month trial, the court, presided over by Fredrick Nawura, found the duo guilty for robbing people of their cash, laptops and mobile phones worth thousands of Ghana Cedis and subjecting them to torture.
The convicts, on September 17, 2015, used their nefarious ways to rob a young woman that work with Agricare Company Limited in Kumasi of her belongings.
The prosecutor, Detective Inspector Stephen Ofori, told the court that the woman, who was on her way back home from work on that day, was attacked by the gang when she boarded their taxi cab at Santasi Roundabout.
According to him, the complainant, who was travelling from Tanso towards Atonsu, a suburb of Kumasi, boarded a Toyota Corolla cab.
He narrated that another man in the person of Frank Osei also boarded the taxi immediately after the complainant, but alighted at Yegola Junction which is about 200 metres away from the Santasi Roundabout.
D/Inspector Ofori said the convicts used the Kumasi Abattoir bypass on reaching Asokwa.
The criminal gang attacked and robbed the complainant of her Asus X200 laptop valued GH?3,000, one Nokia X2 GH?200 worth GH?350, a wristwatch valued GH?200 and GH?200 cash.
The prosecutor asserted that the convicts who were ruthless petrified the lady before robbing her of money and possessions.
They later dumped her in a gutter in front of the Bomplex Timber Company at Ahinsan, another Kumasi suburb and bolted.
The complainant reported the incident to the police at the Asokwa Divisional Command.
On December 15, 2015, while going about her normal business, the complainant spotted the convicts at the Asokwa Magistrate Court and alerted the police who arrested them.
They were later arraigned before the Bekwai Circuit Court on the charges.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Bekwai