Three persons have appeared before an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly robbing six people of various amounts of money and valuables worth several thousands of Ghana Cedis.
They are Stephen Bediako, 30, aka Skyro/Mawuli, unemployed; Kwaku Nuworkpeh, 35, aka Olugbemi/Stephen, farmer and Abass Fuseni, 23, unemployed.
The three were said to have laid ambush near the Cosmos Forex Bureau, Teshie and attacked the complainants.
They reportedly conspired and robbed one Sani Abubakar at Teshie on August 24, 2016 of his GH¢40,000, CFA 67,000, Naira 20,000 and an HP laptop.
The trio also robbed one Yusif Issah Mohammed of his HP laptop.
Quist Abbey and Esther Quist on August 14 were also robbed of their mobile phones and assorted credit cards worth GH¢2,700.
Appearing before trial judge Aboagye Tandoh, the accused persons, who spoke in Twi and English, denied the charges and were remanded into police custody until September 26.
This was after the court had deferred ruling on the bail application filed by the lawyers of the accused persons.
The accused persons became friends about three months ago. Skyro, who resides at Teshie, went round during the day and assessed places where he deemed fit to rob and invited the two from Volta Region.
On August 23, Skyro invited Olugbemi, who also asked Abass to meet them at Teshie to embark on robbery spree.
Olugbami and Abass arrived at about 6pm, but Olugbami lodged with Skyro in his house while Abass spent the night elsewhere.
At 8am on the next day, the accused persons met at Fertilizer Road, Teshie and waited patiently opposite the Forex Bureau for the arrival of Sani and Yusif and attacked them immediately they entered.
Olugbami, who was wielding a pump action gun, positioned himself at the entrance of the Forex Bureau, while Skyro and Abass, armed with locally manufactured pistols, entered the Forex Bureau and ordered the complainants to surrender their monies, mobile phones, Dell and HP laptops.
Abass hit the forehead of Yussif, who did not resist, with the butt of his pistol and collected the said monies from him.
The complainants raised alarm which attracted a lot of people to pursue them for their arrest.
Skyro fired a shot to scare the people who were pursing them.
The accused persons fled in different directions in a bush.
Owing to the fact that the accused persons were armed, the complainants could not search the bush.
Police patrol teams, which arrived on the scene 45 minutes later, arrested the accused persons in different parts of the bush.
A sack containing GH¢4,388 and pump action gun were retrieved from Olugbami, while a bag containing a single barrel gun, a locally manufactured pistol and 13 Lion BB cartridges were retrieved from Abass.
Skyro abandoned his locally manufactured pistol in the bush and hid in a bathroom of a house.
The locally manufactured pistol was later retrieved from the bush with one empty shell of Lion BB cartridge in the barrel.
Investigations further revealed that Olugbami brought the cartridges from Kpetoe and gave them to one Kojo who lives at Teshie.
The GH¢40,000, CFA 67,000 and Naira 20,000 could not be accounted for when the accused persons were arrested.
During interrogation, Olugbami and Abass admitted that they and one Zila, now at large, robbed one Doris Okai another complainant in the case who deals in assorted drinks at Nungua of her GH¢11,000 and Infinix Hot Note mobile phone.
By Jeffrey De-Graft JohnsonÂ
jeffdegraft44@yahoo.com