4 Armed robbers nabbed

Page 25: Daily Graphic, March 19, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE timely response of the police yesterday led to the arrest of four suspected armed robbers at the Nyamekye Junction in Accra after the robbers had raided the house of a sister of a former Minister of Health, Dr Sipa Yankey, at East Legon in Accra.
The suspects — George Owusu Bempah, 25, an electrician; Odartey Lamptey, 23, a steel bender; Roger Agbadi, 24, a labourer, and Kwame Kumah, 23, the house boy at the victim’s residence, are currently in the custody of the police.
A Toyota Camry with registration number GT 844 X, laptops, DVD players, jewellery, a television set, DSTV decoder, a suitcase and about six mobile phones, among other items, were stolen.
The robbers allegedly held the houseboy and the house girl hostage and plastered their mouth before carrying out the robbery.
Roger, George and Odartey reportedly took turns to rape the house girl, who coincidentally happens to be the sister of Kwame Nkrumah, the orchestrator of the robbery.
Kwame is alleged to have taken photographs of his madam’s two vehicles and given them to the robbers ostensibly to show to prospective buyers but to the robbers to choose the car to rob.
In a bid to deceive the victim and the police, the robbers left behind a letter to the victim purporting to have emanated from her former labourer, Kwasi, as having organised his boys to rob her.
At the time of filing this report, the house girl had been sent to the Police Hospital for medical treatment.
Briefing the Daily Graphic after leading the police to arrest the robbers, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, and her deputy, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said the police had a distress call at about 9:30a.m. yesterday that some armed robbers had raided a house on Monrovia Road at East Legon near the Emmanuel Eye Clinic.
She said within 15 minutes that the police got to the scene, the robbers had sped off with the booty.
She said the police pursued the robbers upon hearing that they had taken to the Lapaz road.
According to her, the police fired at the robbers after they refused to stop and surrender themselves to the police.
DCOP Atinga said it was as a result of the shooting that the robbers gave up and were arrested.
ACP Yohuno said three days before yesterday’s incident, an informant had brought the pictures of the two vehicles to the Accra Regional Police Command.
He said the informant had indicated that the robbers were looking for prospective buyers before going to rob the vehicle to sell at GH¢12,000.
He explained that because the registration numbers of the vehicles were covered in the picture, it was extremely difficult to locate the owners of the vehicles.
For his part, a former Minister of Health, Dr Sipa Yankey, whose sister was robbed, expressed appreciation to the Inspector General of Police, Mr Paul Quaye, for the swift response to the call.
He said the timely response of the police showed that with more logistics and motivation, the police would rise up to the occasion.