<<Print>>

Two students of Accra Academy who were arrested by the police last Thursday, for allegedly robbing a boutique at Dzorwulu in Accra in broad daylight, have been charged with conspiracy and robbery amidst weeping by two women believed to be mothers of the boys, outside the courtroom. The students, Adusu Benjamin, 19, and Obeng Francis Akoi, 18, were put before an Accra Circuit Court presided over by Eric Kyei Baffuor. They pleaded not guilty to the offences. One woman who wept uncontrollably as the handcuffed boys were being led to a mini prison, after court proceedings at the 28th February Court, popularly known as Cocoa Affairs Court, had to be comforted by another woman said to be a relative of one of the students. Two of their accomplices, Richard Anane, 19, and Mohammed Braimah, 18, believed to be students of the same school, are on the run and the police are making frantic efforts to get them so that all of them can be tried together. The suspects, Benjamin Adusu and Mohammed Braimah are Business students while Richard Anane and Francis Obeng are both General Arts students at the school. Adusu and Okoi, together with their accomplices who they claim are their seniors in school, reportedly tied their victim, the boutique attendant, with a rope and threatened him with cutlasses and locally-made pistols. They have been remanded in police custody while the case has been adjourned to December 27, 2011. Presenting the facts of the case, the prosecuting officer, Kofi Blagodzi, told the court that the accused persons were students of Accra Academy while the complainant was Patrick Afful, a shop attendant at Papish Boutique at Dzorwulu. He said on December 8, 2011, at about 1pm, the accused persons, together with two others, called Richard Anane and Braimah Mohammed, now at large, visited the said boutique apparently to shop but after enquiring about the prices some of the items, they left. According to him, the accused persons came back into the shop with bags behind them and again demanded prices of goods on display at the shop. He said the students, in the process, lured the boutique attendant to a cubicle of the shop and tied him up with a rope, after threatening him with a locally-manufactured pistol and two cutlasses. The prosecutor said the accused persons managed to steal assorted items such as shoes, shorts, trousers, belts, ladies wear and custom jewellery, all valued at GH�1,130. He noted that luck however eluded them when the complainant managed to untie the rope and rushed out of the boutique to shout. Before the accused persons boarded a taxi, some passersby managed to stop them. He said the accused persons were apprehended by the police with the help of a policeman on duty nearby but the two accomplices managed to escape. The two were handed over to a police patrol team which handed them over to the Kotobabi Police. Counsel for the accused, Alex Adjei and Frimpong Manso, said the boys were lured into the operation under the pretext that they were going to do something else and prayed the court to grant the accused persons bail. The judge however declined and said they should be remanded in custody till the next hearing.