The founder and overseer of Calvary Royal House Prayer Army, Bright Debrah, has been remanded into custody by an Accra circuit court on two counts of conspiracy to commit crime and robbery.
The pastor is alleged to have conspired with one other person – who is currently at large – to rob a taxi driver whose services they hired from Bubiashie to East Legon in Accra.
The two reportedly tied the neck of the driver with a rope, threatened him with a knife and succeeded in robbing him of an amount of GH¢200.
After the alleged robbery, Pastor Bright Debrah purportedly removed the vehicle’s ignition key and threw it away so that the driver could not chase him and his accomplice.
Luck however, eluded him as the driver shouted for help, thereby attracting the attention of a police officer who was on residential guard duty, close to the crime scene.
The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Kwabena Adu, told the court that the police officer ordered Bright to stop but he refused and took to his heels.
He said a passer-by, who is a witness in the case, also pursued the suspect and in an attempt to grab him, Bright threatened to stab him.
“Notwithstanding the aggressiveness of the accused, the people around overpowered him and brought him to the East Legon police station together with the knife,” Chief Inspector Adu told the court.
Counsel for the accused prayed the court to grant his client bail, stating that he is a pastor and for the past eight days that he had been in custody, his congregation had not been given any moral direction.
Chief Inspector Adu however, opposed the granting of bail, stating that strenuous efforts were being made to arrest the second suspect and so granting the pastor bail would disrupt police efforts.
The court, presided over by Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku, subsequently remanded the pastor to reappear on January 2, 2018.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak