Farmer to spend 17 years in jail for robbery

A farmer, accused of snatching a taxi from its driver at gun point has been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment in hard labour by a Cape Coast Circuit Court.

Ransford Eghan had engaged the services of the victim to carry him in his cab from Mankessim to the Kotoka International Airport in Accra but ended up seizing and attempting to flee with the vehicle.

The incident happened on January 16, last year, at about 1030 hours and Eghan pleaded not guilty.

A State Attorney, Mrs. Bettey Dankwa Smith told the court, presided over by Mrs. Afia Nyarko Adu-Amankwah, that quick thinking by a young man, who had gone to draw water from a stream and chanced upon the robbery attack, thwarted his escape with the cab.

He called to alert private security guards at the Pozzolina Company Limited and together with the police, blocked the road to prevent him from running away with the vehicle.

The prosecution said Eghan had convinced the driver, John Amoah, to pick a lady at Gyankrom to join them to Accra, so he branched off the Cape Coast-Accra highway and after driving for about 10 minutes, he asked that the driver stopped so that he could ease himself in the bush.

In no time, he emerged from the bush, wearing dark spectacles, pulled a gun and threatened to shoot him dead if he did not surrender the ignition key and the money on him.

Fearing for his life, Amoah did as he was told and Eghan sat behind the steering wheel and sped off.

Unknown to him a young man from Gyankrom, Ebenezer Ansah, saw everything from a safe distance and used his phone to alert the private security guards, who also informed the police and a road block was hurriedly mounted.

Eghan on seeing the road block, pulled up, abandoned the taxi cab and fled into the bush but he was arrested with the assistance of the youth of Gyankrom.

The police seized from him, a locally manufactured pistol and a pair of handcuffs.