An Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Ellen Ofei-Ayeh, has sentenced a 24-year-old man, who attacked a University of Ghana student, into a total of 36 years in hard labour.
Emmanuel Amaning, unemployed, was sentenced yesterday 18 years on each charge – conspiracy to commit a crime and robbery. The sentences are to run concurrently.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges, therefore, went through the full trial.
Before the sentence was pronounced on him, he pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy, as he had a five years old daughter and a sick mother under his care as the breadwinner.
Also, he is a product of a broken home and never had the opportunity to climb up the education ladder beyond Primary ‘4’.
The court also considered the gravity of the crime, and the fact that the trial had gone the full length, before establishing the convict guilty.
Two other people, who were charged with the convict – Frank Attah Kwame Agyekum and Kofi Kwarteng alias Kofi Adwoumor – were acquitted and discharged for lack of evidence.
The court held that the convict conspired with Evans Kwabena Nyarko, a store keeper who is at large, to perpetuate the crime.
Her Honour Ofei-Ayeh was told by Chief Inspector Moses Mensah Soagede that Joshua Asante Tuah is the complainant and a student of University of Ghana, and lives at Haatao with his family.
The prosecutor said on September 15, 2019, at about 2:00am, the convict and his accomplices armed themselves with a locally manufactured pistol, a cutlass and a screw driver, and broke into the complainant’s house while he and his family were asleep.
He said one of the accomplices of the convict went to the complainant’s room, woke him up and pointed a locality manufactured pistol at him demanding that he hand over monies and other valuables in the house to them, else he would shoot him.
But, out of fear, the complainant shouted for help, and it was heard by his neighbors, who called the Police Information Room for assistance.
The convict and his men succeeded in robbing the complainant off his black bag containing an HP laptop computer, valued at GH¢1,800.00, one Samsung J4 mobile phone, valued at GH¢710.00, and a Samsung ACC mobile phone, valued at GH¢300.00, all at a total value of GH¢2,810.00.
The complainant was also robbed off his school certificates, ID cards and other documents.
Luck eluded Emmanuel and he was arrested at the scene, whilst his accomplices managed to escape, and was hand over to a Police Patrol Team at the scene.
The police established during investigations that the accused and his gang hatched the plan on September 14, 2019, at 10.00pm at Agbogbloshie, after which they armed themselves and proceeded to the complainant’s house where they scaled the fence wall into the compound and broke into his house through the kitchen door and robbed him.
On October 10, 2019, the Accra Regional Police received information from the Nkawkaw Police that Frank Attah Kwame Agyekum and Evans Kwabena Nyarko had been arrested in another robbery expedition and were then escorted to the Accra Regional CID for investigation.
In their respective cautioned statements, Frank and Evans admitted that they were accomplices of Emmanuel and Kofi Kwarteng, alias Kofi Adwoumor, who was by then at large.
On October 22, 2020, at Agbogbloshie in Accra, through police surveillance Kofi was arrested from his hideout, and in their various investigation cautioned statements admitted knowing themselves and further stated the roles each played in the robbery.
The prosecution said the four admitted going to the complainant’s house on September 15, 2019, at about 2:00am, and robbed him off his property.
