Car Snatcher Jailed 30 Yrs

Dauda Salisu, the 35-year-old farmer facing trial for allegedly robbing one Kwaku Boateng of his Nissan Almera taxi cab, was yesterday handed a 30-year-jail term by an Accra Circuit Court. The accused on Friday told the court that he admitted committing the offence in his caution statement because of police brutality, an alibi which could not rescue him from the grips of the law. �I was beaten by the police, so I signed the statement. There was a time I even complained about this in court and my Lord cautioned them to stop,� the accused asserted. He stressed that he signed the caution statement under duress. However, the court, presided over by Francis Obiri, found him guilty of the charge of robbery. Sentencing Salisu, popularly known as �Oseley,� the trial judge stated that he (accused) in the cause of the trial, had said the car was to be sold and a share of GH�9,000 sent to him. He said Salisu, by those comments, had admitted the offence for which reason he must be handed a harsher sentence to serve as a deterrent to others. Quoting Matthew 12:36-37 he said, �But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.� Mr. Obiri continued, �Based on this sanctimonious and religious note, I find the accused guilty of the offence and sentence him to 30 years� imprisonment.� Prosecuting at the initial stage of the trial, DSP Patrick Morkeh said at about 10:30 am on July 29, 2012 Boateng, who is a taxi driver, was driving the said taxi cab with registration number GW 7489-12 when he received a telephone call from Salisu. Salisu, who had earlier on engaged his services, asked the driver to meet him at Lapaz, a suburb of Accra. He said the accused person asked Boateng to drive him to Miotso, near the campus of the Central University College. DSP Morkeh said on the way to Miotso, Salisu asked Boateng to make a stopover near Dawhenya so he could load his concrete pillars which he intended to erect on his plot of land at Miotso, and Boateng obliged. Prosecution said when they got to a place around the Central University College, Salisu asked Boateng to stop and help him offload the concrete pillars onto the purported plot of land, adding that upon entering the bush with the concrete pillars, Salisu pulled a pistol from his pocket and ordered the driver to lie down. He said the accused person tied him up with a rope and demanded the key to the car and when Boateng, out of fear, handed over the key to him (accused) he drove the vehicle away. DSP Morkeh further said that Salisu was later arrested at Agona Swedru in connection with another crime and was identified by Boateng at the Accra Regional CID Police Station.