Armed robbery gang jailed 125 years in Akatsi South

A Ho Circuit Court in the Volta Region has convicted three persons for their respective roles in an armed robbery attack on Makafui Atsu Kumordzi, the Director of Makafui and Son’s Limited, a lotto company located at Ayitikope within the Akatsi South Municipality.

The convicts, Nzete Chukunhru Best, age 28, Mark Billy Agbozo, 31, also known as Teacher, and Ernest Sokpi Amevor, 32, popularly called ‘Peace Maker’, were convicted by the court on the charges of abetment of robbery, conspiracy to commit a crime to wit robbery, and robbery.

Convict Agbozo and Sokpi Amevor are to serve 25 years in hard labour on two counts of offences for each conviction, totalling 50 years each, which are to run concurrently, while Nzete Chukunhru, the first accused, was also given a 25-year jail term in hard labour for abetment of robbery.

On Monday, December 23, the court, presided over by Felix Datsomor, a Circuit Court Judge, after a full trial, found the convicts guilty of all the charges levelled against them, thereby sentencing them to serve as a deterrent to others after they prayed to the court for leniency before their respective jail terms were proffered.

According to facts available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Andrews Dodzi Adugu, a senior state attorney at the Attorney General’s Office in the Volta Region and lead counsel for the prosecution, explained that Nzete Chukunhru is a Nigerian who deals in second-hand clothing in Accra, whiles Agbozo and Sokpi Amevor are drivers and residents at Ehi near Agbozume.

He told the court that on May 29, 2021, at about 2330 hours, while the complainant was asleep in his residence at Ayitikope, the convicts, who used a Daewoo taxicab with registration number GE 3739-12, proceeded to the house of Kumordzi.

The prosecution narrated that the team alighted Nzete Chukunhru on the way to serve as a spy while the other accomplices in the company of six others scaled the complainant’s fence wall and broke his door, gaining access to the living room.

He narrated that they were all masked welding guns, metal bars, and machetes. The accused persons and their accomplices shot the complainant’s left thigh three times. At gunpoint, they stole an amount of GH₵ 160,000 CFA Franc valued at GH₵ 640,000, and an amount of GH₵25,000 from Peace Lordeena Sedofia, wife of Kumordzi, the amount totalling about GHC825,000.

The prosecution stated that a case was reported to the Police, after which Nzete Chukunhru was arrested in Accra in a swoop on November 26, 2021.

He said during interrogation, Nzete told the Police that he had taken part in a series of robberies, including that involving the complainant at Ayitikope and consequently led the Police to arrest Agbozo, whom he stated was the one who drove them to the robbery scene and also took part in the robbery.

The prosecution also revealed that Agbozo, who denied being part of the robbery initially acceded to the crime, confessing serving as driver of the gang to the scene of attack, robbed the cash and distributed among the group.

Makafui and Son’s Company Limited in a space of two years (2021-2022), suffered life-threatening attacks during, which Dotsey Dogbatey, one of the company’s drivers was shot dead after returning from his daily lotto papers collection rounds.

Efforts are underway to arrest the other accomplices.