Two highway robbers jailed

Two men who orchestrated an armed robbery attack along the Accra- Aflao highway have been jailed 10 years each with hard labour by a Ho High Court on charges of robbery and conspiracy to rob.

Uche Amadu, 30, and Anthony Afanyi, 25, had pleaded not guilty to the charges, but the court, presided over by Mr Patrick Baayeh, found them guilty on the two charges and convicted them accordingly.

According to a Senior State Attorney of the Attorney-General’s Department in Ho, Mr Simon Adatsi, ?Amadu and Afanyi joined a passenger bus on August 19, 2009 about 1.30 a.m. from Accra towards Aflao.

He said on reaching a section of the route at Sogakope, two persons sitting in the front seat of the vehicle asked the driver to stop to enable them to alight, and as soon as the driver stopped, Amadu and Afanyi pulled a gun on him and requested him to hand over the car key to them.

Mr Adatsi said in the process, Amadu fired a pistol and the pellets spread and hit three other passengers while Afanyi pulled the driver down from behind the steering wheel, collected his mobile phone and drove the vehicle to an obscure spot.

At the obscure spot, the prosecutor said they robbed the passengers of their mobile phones, videos and cameras, among other valuable belongings, and abandoned the vehicle and the passengers near the bank of the Volta River at Agavedzi.

The prosecutor said Amadu and Afanyi were later arrested at Big Ada and handed over to the police.

Mr Adatsi said the victims later identified Amadu and Afanyi as those who had robbed them of their valuables, and that some items which were found on them were identified as theirs.