Armed robbers attack and rob Editor of 'The Pioneer'

Kumasi, Jan 13, GNA - Armed robbers numbering about five in the early hours of Sunday attacked and robbed Mr Johnson Gyampoh, the Editor of 'The Pioneer' newspaper, and other houses at Kenyasi New Site near Mamponteng in the Kwabre District.

The robbers, who spent almost one hour in the house of the Editor, kept him and his family including his wife who is nursing a one-week-old baby, hostage and ransacked the rooms and made away with clothes and money they could lay hands on including coins. They contemplated taking his car but their leader ordered them to leave the car and cautioned him to be wary of people who visit him. The robbers told him: "You are lucky we belong to the Pentecost Church otherwise we would have killed all of you".

Narrating the ordeal he and his family went through to the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi, Mr Gyampoh said his wife heard footsteps behind the window while they were sitting in the hall but when he checked he did not find anybody.

Suddenly, he said, there was a loud bang on the front door and the robbers burst into the room wielding guns, cutlasses and clubs and demanded the money sent to him for a building project.

When he told them he had no money and nobody had sent him money for a building project, they grew furious, assaulted him and took away 2.5 million cedis belonging to the wife.

Mr Gyampoh said they went to the room where his sister was sleeping and asked her to give them the money she had brought with her. When she said she did not have any money they gave her a thorough thrashing and took the few cedis in her purse including coins. He said they snatched all their mobile phones, took away their personal belongings and told them not to go out until 0500 hours otherwise they would kill them.

The robbers then attacked about three other houses in the area. The Mamponteng police are handling the case.