Osman Salame
One of the supposed masked armed men, who raided the offices of Royal Motors – an automobile company in Accra – in broad daylight on Friday, March 2, 2018, has been arraigned before an Accra Circuit Court.
Osman Salame aka Bebe, 35, was among a group of four men who allegedly trailed a bullion van to the premises of the automobile company and robbed it (company) of the previous day’s sales and other valuables.
He was picked up by the police last week at Ashalaja in the Ga West Municipality of the Greater Accra Region.
Osman Salame was arraigned before the court yesterday on the charges of conspiracy and robbery.
The facts of the case are still scanty as the police are further probing the matter, so his plea was not taken.
He was therefore remanded into custody to reappear on March 21, 2018, when his plea will be taken and the charges read to him.
On that fateful day, the armed men reportedly snatched a Toyota Camry saloon car from its owner after allegedly shooting the driver, while they were escaping.
The victim, who was said to have been shot in the shoulder, according to police reports, was sent to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for treatment.
Media reports had indicated that the suspected robbers were about 10 and that two persons got injured.
But the police confirmed in their preliminary investigation that there were four masked men involved and that it was the driver of the Toyota Camry, who was shot.
An eyewitness account at the scene indicated that the incident occurred at about 9:00 am.
According to him, the robbers followed a bullion van that had entered the premises of the company to cart some money to the bank.
At the gate, the suspects, according to the eyewitness, told the security man on duty that they were there to make an enquiry, but upon entering the premises, attacked him and seized his mobile phones.
They proceeded to the main building after asking the security man for direction at gunpoint and ransacked the offices of the accountant, the manager and the cashier.
“Before the security man could talk, two of the suspects had entered the cashier’s office where an amount of GH¢8,000 was taken; they destroyed a CCTV device that was installed in the office before they moved to the accounts office and then to the manager’s, where they shot at the door several times to force it open, entered and took additional unspecified amount of money,” an eyewitness told DAILY GUIDE at the crime scene.
So far three persons have been arrested in connection with the daylight robbery.
Two of the suspects – all policemen – picked earlier, were helping with information that could lead to the arrest of other suspects.
According to sources, there was a police officer on guard duties at a nearby bank at the time of the attack, but he could not fire at the fleeing robbers because the gun had jammed in the process.
Another version was that the policeman reportedly could not fire because there were a lot of bystanders and was afraid he could miss his target.
The other policeman, according to sources, was supposed to accompany the bullion van that the robbers had trailed to the company’s premises.
“The two police officers have since given their various statements to the police,” a police source claimed.
By Gibril Abdul Razak