Story: Moses Aklorbortu, Sekondi
IN what appears to be a semblance of a Hollywood movie, two out of the three daring fugitives who broke jail at the Sekondi Prison last Sunday after they had been sentenced to 120 years in prison two weeks ago have been rearrested. They had misused their new found freedom to allegedly commit another robbery and were nabbed in the process.
A joint military and police team arrested them after they had joined three other fugitives to allegedly rob residents of Ituma Estate in the Shama District of their mobile phones and money.
The two are Ebenezer Okoley Tetteh and Raphael Laweh, who had each been jailed 40 years by the Sekondi High Court two weeks ago.
The three other fugitives who allegedly took part in the Ituma Estate robbery have been identified as Garriba Ibrahim and Ibrahim Jarru, both Fulani herdsmen, who had also been jailed 60 years and 40 years, respectively, and Kweku Abeiku, who had been in jail for a robbery offence.
After breaking jail, the escapees broke into the prison’s armoury and made away with seven G3 rifles and ammunition.
So far three, of the rifles have been recovered, while the remaining four are still with those at large.
According to the police, before the arrest of the five, they had allegedly attacked residents of Ituma Estate and robbed them to enable them to get some money to pay their fare to Accra.
The police said the escapees, who were on board an Accra-bound minibus, broke a side glass of the bus at Beposo and jumped out in an attempt to run away when they realised that prison officers were at the toll gate.
They were, however, re-arrested by security personnel, with the assistance of the people of the town.
According to the police, the robbers told them that the remaining G3 rifles were in the hands of the remaining three escapees and the one who had posed as a visitor to the prison which had led to the jailbreak.
The police said the re-arrested prisoners named Raphael Ayo Buoro and Olabode, both Nigerians, as their leaders.
Preliminary investigations, however, indicated that there had been many security lapses on the part of the prison authorities.
According to a source, there had been only four prison officers on duty on the day of the incident.
It said when the visitor entered the prison yard, he had not been searched, while his records had also not been taken as required.
In addition, the arms in the armoury had also not been chained through the trigger-guard, as was required by the rules of every armoury, while there had been no guard in the tower overseeing the prisons.
That aside, the Regional Prisons Commander and his deputy were said to be out of town at the time of the incident.
The source added that a senior prison officer who had been transferred to Nsawam but was in Sekondi at the time of the incident moved in to save the situation.
At the moment, there were questions as to why only four officers were on duty to control more than 800 prisoners and why the small gate inside the building had been left open, the source said.
It also questioned why prisoners who were slapped with such heavy sentences were left in the Sekondi Central Prison and not transported to Nsawam.
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