4 Robbers jailed 200 years

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Sekondi
March 25, 2008

FOUR highway robbers who attacked passengers on board an Agona-Half Assini bus have been convicted and sentenced to a total of 200 years imprisonment with hard labour.
The Sekondi High Court, presided over by Mr Justice C. Hoeyenugah, found the four, two Ghanaians, a Nigerian and a Burkinabe, guilty of violent conduct and robbing the passengers in July last year and accordingly slapped them with the sentence.
While Mohammed Garriba, 30, the Nigerian, was jailed 60 years, the Burkinabe, Wadrago Adama, 22, was jailed 50 years, while the two Ghanaians, Ibrahim Issa, 22, and Salifu Musah, 23, were sentenced to 40 and 50 years, respectively.
Mr Justice Hoenyenugah said society disapproved of the violent conduct of the convicts, hence the punishment.
He expressed the hope that their punishment would also serve as a deterrent to other criminally-minded people in society.
Giving the facts of the case, the prosecutor, a Chief State Attorney, Ms Pat Linogo, said the four convicted persons, together with others who were currently at large, blocked a section of the Agona Nkwanta-Half Assini road with logs and succeeded in robbing the occupants of vehicles travelling on that route at that time of various sums of money and other valuables.
She said the police, upon receiving information on the activities of the robbers, mounted snap checks on the highway for them, adding that it was during a routine search on a passenger vehicle that Musah alighted from the vehicle and took to his heels. But he was captured after a hot pursuit.
Ms Linogo said Adama, Gariba and Issa were also arrested during the search on the vehicle and a black bag containing three wristwatches, clothes, mobile phones, one gold bracelet, one gold necklace and GH¢370.00 were found on them.
She said they were subsequently taken to the Kwesimintsim Police Station where one of the victims, who was then at the station to lodge a complaint, immediately identified Gariba as one of the people who had attacked them on the highway, while Salifu was also identified by two other victims.
The court later ordered the release of the stolen items to the victims.
Mr Justice Hoenyenugah described the investigator, Sgt Ben Baah of the CID Unit of the Western Regional Police Command, as a hardworking professional and suggested that he should be promoted for his efficient investigation of the case.