Police arrest 2 armed robbers

The Police at the weekend arrested two armed robbers who attacked the Rainbow Trading Company on the Graphic Road in Accra.

They are Baba Suley, 32, a resident of Zongo and Kwame Owusu, 31, of Pig Farm. The robbers, numbering five, attacked Mr Bassam Younnes, the Managing Director of the company, in the store at gun-point and demanded the keys to his safe.

According to an eyewitness, the robbers, who wielded guns, attacked the store at 8.30 a.m. when Mr Younnes was about to enter the store for the day’s business.

A police source said the robbers overpowered Mr Younnes and seized the gun he had before marching him into the store. before marching him into the store. The source said the robbers asked him to surrender all the monies in his possession as well as the key to his safe.

According to the source, when Mr Younnes failed to produce the key and the money they searched him and took away his gold watch, chain and ?350,000.

The source said the robbers subjected the victim and a store assistant to severe beatings and also hit the assistant with the butt of their gun. It said a BMW car with registration number AS 5440 R which the robbers used for the operations speeded off when the driver realised that the attention of a police dispatch rider was being drawn to the act.

The police dispatch rider, Sgt Daniel Amakye, gave the car a hot chase and in an attempt to cross it, the driver hit him and speeded off.

The source added that when the robbers in the store sensed danger they also fled amidst the firing of gun shots and seized a vehicle with registration number, GT 2764 C, and speeded off. Not quite 50 metres from where they took off, the vehicle skidded off the road and went into a ditch.

The robbers then abandoned it, hijacked a taxi cab and drove towards the Awudome Cemetery Road. The source said, Alhaji Mohammed Odaymat of Rana Motors and his brother, Abdul Razak, who witnessed the robbery, trailed the robbers towards the cemetery road.

The robbers fired at Mr Odaymat when they realised he was trailing them. Mr Odaymat also fired back at the robbers and was able to hit the rear tyre of their vehicle, resulting in the vehicle going into a ditch.

The source added that the four armed robbers in the vehicle took to their heels but two of them were overpowered by a mob which was attracted to the scene. But for the timely arrival of the police, they would have been lynched. Superintendent K. A. Boateng, Odorkor District Police Commander, corroborated the story and said two pistols were retrieved from the vehicle of the robbers after a through search.