Driver�s Mate Arrested For Killing Taxi Driver

A driver�s mate who is suspected to have strangled a taxi driver and snatched his car has been grabbed by the Kasoa Police. The suspect, 24-year-old Kofi Gyan, is said to have committed the crime with an accomplice, Emmanuel Agyei, also a driver�s mate, who is currently at large. The body of the taxi driver, identified as Odartey Lamptey, 24, was found in a bush at the Millennium City in Kasoa on May 28, 2014. Gyan was arrested after he had allegedly confessed to the crime to an agent who was helping him to sell the taxi. He was said to have also told the agent that he believed the car was developing mechanical faults because he (Gyan) and a friend had killed the owner and snatched the car from him at Kasoa. Taxi driver was suspect�s friend The Kasoa District Police Commander, Superintendent of Police Mr Samuel Tibil Punobyin, said Gyan and his accomplice who lived at Kasoa conspired to snatch a taxi on May 27, 2014. Gyan, he said, had told his accomplice that he had taxi driver friends, one of whose car they could snatch. �So they called Lamptey, who had a Nissan Almera taxi, with registration number GY 2683-13, and told him they wanted to hire his services,� Mr Punobyin said. According to him, the suspects asked the taxi driver to meet them at the main Kasoa traffic interchange and take them to the Millennium City about 7 p.m. At the agreed time, the suspects met the taxi driver, �but when they reached a quiet point, Gyan, who was sitting in the passenger seat behind the taxi driver, pulled out a nylon rope and tied it around Lamptey�s neck�. While Gyan strangled the taxi driver, Mr Punobyin said, his accomplice pulled the taxi to a halt and �when they realised that Lamptey was dead, they pushed the body out of the car and abandoned it in the bush�. The two suspects were said to have driven the taxi to Agona Odoben in the Central Region. Car in Kumasi On May 28, 2014, Mr Punobyin said, the Kasoa Police received information that the body of a man had been found in a bush at the Millennium City. �Crime scene experts were dispatched to the place and when the body was picked and inspected, it was found that there were marks around the neck and so immediately we suspected murder,� he explained. A family that had earlier reported of a missing relation later identified the body as that of Lamptey�s. �A search was then mounted and an alert on the vehicle was sent to all police stations,� he said. While the search was ongoing, he said, a man whose name was being withheld by the police reported to the Suame Police in Kumasi that a man with a taxi for sale had claimed that he had killed the owner. However, Gyan bolted on seeing the police and abandoned the taxi, which was impounded. The police traced Gyan to Agona Odoben, where he was arrested and handed over to the Kasoa Police.