Soldier gets 75 years for robbery

A Sunyani high court has sentenced a military officer to 75 years’ imprisonment term for engaging in armed robbery activities.

The court, presided over by Justice Amos Lawoe Boatey, jailed Staff Sergeant Alhassan Hameed, 42, who was standing trial with five others after he had pleaded guilty to the offence for which they had been charged.

Staff Sgt Hameed, a serving military officer based at the Third Infantry Battalion (3BN) in Sunyani, it will be recalled, was arrested on Thursday, February 26, 2015, at the Yawhima Barrier, near Sunyani by the police when they were returning from a robbery expedition at Wenchi in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

The five others are: Sheriff Adams aka Alhaji Fresh, 31, a suspected hardened criminal; Osei Kuffour, 32; Kwadwo Francis, 25; Exmond Bawuah, 27 and Kwabena Yeboah, 32.

The six were said to have gone to the Wenchi Branch of BACCSOD Macro Finance Company, which is owned by the Catholic Church, and at gunpoint tied the watchman on duty, broke into the building and took away an unspecified amount of money.

After robbing the financial institution, they picked the watchman, dumped him at a distance and then bolted, but were arrested upon a tip-off at the barrier.

A number of items – four mobile phones, two knives, two crowbars, one screw driver, one strong decoder, one military uniform, an unspecified amount of money, a machete, a pistol and cartridges, among others – were found on them at the time of their arrest.

An Opel Astra taxi with registration number ER 3527-U, which the suspects had allegedly been using in their robbery operations, was also impounded.

According to the police, the soldier and his gang were a robbery syndicate who had been on the wanted list of the Brong-Ahafo Regional Police Command for robbing a number of banks in the region.