On Friday May 6, this year, we reported that the thief who broke into the Osu Christiansburg Castle to steal 1,125 rounds of 7.62 by 39mm calibre live ammunitions has been given a custodial sentence of three years by the Accra Circuit Court ‘2’.
The court, which sat on Wednesday, May 4, 2022 and presided over by Her Honour Rosemary Baah Torsu took the decision after the convict, Mustapha Awudu, 22, pleaded guilty to two counts of stealing and unlawful entry. His sentence will run concurrently. The Chronicle is happy with the swift manner the case has been dealt with by the court, due to the guilty plea entered by the convict.
We belief the action of the court will send a strong signal to other criminals who may be contemplating of committing the same offence against the state. But, whilst commending both the prosecution and the court for the expeditious trial of the case, The Chronicle is worried that Mustapha Awudu, the convict, could enter such a high security zone to steal without being caught by the National Security officials.
But for the attempt made by the convict to sell some of the stolen ammunitions in the black market, the authorities wouldn’t have known that dangerous items such as ammunitions had been stolen from their armoury. According to the prosecution, the then suspect, Mustapha Awudu, admitted in the course of investigation into the case that he entered the security room where the ammunitions were being stored through one of the windows.
He boldly demonstrated to the police investigators, as the court was told, how he managed to enter the room through the window without being noticed. Obviously Awudu is a smart guy and his smartness has exposed the security lapses in such a sensitive place, where ammunitions are being stored. The National Security cannot convince The Chronicle that they do not have surveillance cameras dotted all over the place – definitely they have.
The next question is: if security cameras were at the place, why did they fail to notice when the suspect and now convict entered the room and started stealing the ammunitions? If Mr Kan Dapaah’s outfit has not already commissioned internal investigations into the case, then The Chronicle is advising them to immediately start one.
We are saying this because if the convict is a soldier and had the intention of laying hands on arms and ammunitions to destabilise this peaceful country of ours, he would have succeeded because no one saw him entering the ammo room. This, in our view, is a serious security lapse and that is why there must be internal investigation to establish whether the convict was aided to commit the crime or not.
The Chronicle does not expect the National Security to put the outcome of this internal investigation in the public domain. It will, however, help to put measures in place on how to avoid future occurrence. Crimes involving the use of firearms are on the ascendency and if, in the face of this, an ordinary thief can enter one of our national armouries to steal then we have a serious challenge as a country. This is why we expect our respected National Security Minister to open his eyes before he is overtaken by events.
