Good Samaritan saves phone thief

A timely intervention by an elderly man saved a robber from being lynched by a mob in Asafo, a suburb of Kumasi, last Friday.

The thief, in his mid-20s managed to escape from his assailants through the help of a Good Samaritan after he was caught for stealing a mobile phone from a shop on Friday.

But for the elderly man, who pleaded with the mob and subsequently pushed him into a moving private car, the story would have been different for the unidentified thief.

Before the appearance of his ‘saviour’, the suspect had already endured serious beatings from the angry mob that was bent on ending his life.

His initial attempt to seek refuge in a Tech-bound Trotro vehicle, which had parked to offload and pick passengers, after running several meters from his chasers, did not materialize as the mob managed to pull him out of the stationary commercial vehicle and continued their attack.

Several pleas, including physical intervention, by the elderly man to spare the life of the thief proved unsuccessful as they continued to subject him to torture with onlookers looking on and taking videos and pictures.

As has been the norm for thieves who are caught in the act, the suspect kept on shouting his innocence amid beatings, crying that he did not steal anything and that he was being falsely accused.

However, the man managed, eventually to extricate him from the ‘trigger-happy youth’ and pushed him into a moving private car which subsequently sped off from the scene.