Nigerian gets 30 years for robbery

An Accra Circuit Court on Tuesday handed a 30-year jail term to Kingsley Ibe, 23, a Nigerian, for robbery and causing unlawful damage.

Kingsley, together with three others, now at large, were said to have caused unlawful damage to a metal door worth Ghc1,000.00, the property of Petrobay Filling Station, and robbed the workers of the filling station of an amount of Ghc700.00 and two mobile phones.

The convict would serve five years for causing unlawful damage and 30 years for robbery, both to run concurrently.

Presiding judge, Mr Francis Obiri, giving his judgment said, robbery was on the increase and it was high time people who engage in it be given harsher sentences to serve as a deterrent to others and for well meaning people to live without fear of harm.

He said the court found him guilty of the offences based on his own admission of the offence during trial.

Prosecuting, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Patrick Morkeh told the court that, the complainant in this case, Kemuel Asare, is the Manager of Petrobay Filling station at new Boatianor, near Weija, while the convict Kingsley Ibi is a Nigerian national and a scrap dealer.

He said on April 1, at about 0200 hours a witness in the case, Samuel Twumasi Addo, a security man at the said filling station, spotted two young men approaching the station in the dark.

He said the witness approached them and asked of their mission because the station had closed. Suddenly one of the robbers pulled a gun and threatened to shoot the security man.

The prosecution said the rest of the robbers numbering three subjected the security man to severe beatings, tied him up and pushed him into one of the lubricants changing holes which contain water.

He told the court that the rest invaded the station, broke into the mall and attacked the rest of the attendants, who heard the shout of the security man and had come out to aid him.

DSP Morkeh said the robbers tied the attendants and made away with the night sales amounting to GH 700.00 and two mobile phones.

He said the Weija police received a distress call and proceeded to the scene but the suspects on seeing the police fled through a swamp.

He said the police combed the area for the suspects and in the process the convict was found with his attire soaked with mud from the swamp.

The prosecution said the convict was searched and two mobile phones were seen on him but he was not able to give the numbers of the phones.He was taken to the filling station where the victims identified him as one of the culprits.

He told the court that one Comfort Damalia, a pump attendant in the case, identified the Nokia phone as hers and when it was turned on, her image showed up.

The convict then admitted the offence in his caution statement.