Three Highway Robbers Jailed 99 Years In Hard Labour

A Koforidua High Court has sentenced three highway robbers to 99 years in prison with hard labour for conspiracy to rob and robbing, whiles a bench warrant has been issued for the arrest of the fourth accused who is on the run. The convicts, Stephen Asante 23, Charles Ansah 20 and Yaw Attiavor 23, pleaded not guilty to the charges but the court presided over by Justice Gabriel S. Surebaareh found them guilty and sentenced them to 33 years each on Friday. Hamza Mohamed, the fourth accused who is on the run, is being pursued by the police. The facts of the case were that, on April 30th, 2012, at about 0700 hrs, a businessman (name withheld) was on a KIA truck with his driver and the driver�s mate, Stephen Asante with a cash of GHc28,550 from Nsawam going to Accra to buy goods. However, the victim planned to conduct business at Adawso before continuing his journey to Accra. Unknown to the victim, the driver�s mate had arraigned with the others to rob him so on reaching the outskirts of the Adawso, the other convicts, Charles Ansah a butcher and Yaw Attiavor, a carpenter dressed in farm gears pleaded with the complainant to give them a lift to their farm. The complainant obliged and put them in the bucket of the truck and on reaching a village between Adawso and Nsawam, Ansah and Attiavor pleaded with the driver to stop for them to alight and when the vehicle stopped, they drew their cutlasses on the complainant and the driver and succeeded in robbing them of the GHC28, 550. The victim then made a report to the police at Nsawam but the case was later transferred to the Eastern Regional Command for investigation and police intelligence revealed the complicity of the driver�s mate leading to the arrest of all three. A search on them found a total of GHC3,180 cedis, a Daewoo taxi cab with registration number GS7545-Z and other items .