Court remands suspected armed robbers in custody

Sekondi, Mar. 10, GNA- A Sekondi High Court on Tuesday remanded three suspected armed robbers in prison custody for stealing, dishonestly receiving and issuing death threats. They pleaded not guilty.

The suspects are Shaibu Ndamesore, 42, Eric Tetteh, 31 and Daniel Ntow, 23.

Prosecuting, Mr. William Pobee, a Principal State Attorney told the court that on December 3, 2003, the group armed with locally manufactured guns and knives, attacked the house of one Mr. Charles Idan, a marine engineer at the Airport Ridge in Takoradi around 0001 hours and stole 1.5 million cedis, 7,000 US dollars, two mobile phones, several quantities of wrist watches, jewellery and a piece of cloth. He said, that night, a co-tenant identified Ntow but since he was also resident in the neighbourhood, they did not believe he could join the robbers in such an operation.

Mr. Pobee said four days later, the Kwesiminstim neighbourhood watch committee found four men including Ntow around 0001 hours but when the committee attempted to arrest them, they all fled and left Ntow behind. He said the committee arrested and handed him over to the Kwesiminstim police and when he was searched, he had one of the watches stolen from Mr. Idan's house in his pocket and a quantity of leaves suspected to be Indian hemp.

Mr. Pobee said a further search in his room led to the discovery of a large quantity of dried leaves also suspected to be Indian hemp and another wristwatch.

He told the court that the leaves and seeds have been sent to the Police Crime Laboratory in Accra for examination.

Mr. Pobee said investigations conducted by the Police revealed that Shaibu and Tetteh sold the two wristwatches to Ntow after the booty had been shared among them.