POLICE GRAB TWO CAR SNATCHERS (PAGE 3)

By Akwasi Ampratwum- Mensah, Sunyani

TWO men, Rockson Arthur, 28, and Alhassan Mustapha (alias Burger) 37, finding the snatching of mobile cellular phones from unsuspecting victims no longer lucrative, decided to go into armed robbery, using force to take away peoples vehicles especially, taxi cabs, from them for sale.
However, luck eluded them on Friday, May 30, 2008 at about 4pm when they decided to snatch a beautiful taxicab with registration number BA 1490 Y and offer it for sale.
The suspected armed robbers succeeded alright in throwing the driver of the taxi cab out of his car after tying him with a rope and blindfolding him, but they were finally apprehended by the police and arraigned before the circuit court at Fiapre near Sunyani, where they pleaded guilty to the charge of robbery.
Mr Owusu Gyamfi, the Presiding Judge, accordingly sentenced them to 15 years each in hard labour on their own plea.
A source close to the court told Graphic Nsempa in Sunyani that, the accused spotted the taxi somewhere in the Sunyani Municipality and observed that it was nice and marketable, so they stopped the driver, Kwaku Edward, and told him that their own taxi had developed a fault at Asufufu, a town off the Sunyani – Atronie main road and so they wanted to hire his taxi.
The source indicated that Edward agreed to drive them there, but after going a few metres off Attakrom on the main road towards Asufufu, the driver decided to slow down owing to the potholes filled with stagnant water in them.
Rockson, who was seated at the back with a nylon rope hidden in his pocket, removed it and threw it around the neck of Edward and with the help of Mustapha who was sitting in front with the driver, tied him to the seat and again blindfolded him with the driver’s own duster.
According to the source, the robbers then brought an implement with which they threatened to pierce the cheeks of Edward and kill him if he dared make any noise. The source said the driver kept quiet and the accused persons threw him out of the taxi into a bush.
He said a woman who was later returning from her farm came across Edward and managed to untie him after which the two went to a local FM station in Sunyani to make an announcement about the snatching of the driver’s taxicab and later made a report to the police.
The source pointed out that policemen at a check point at Yawhima on the Sunyani–Techiman road, on hearing the announcement intensified their operations at the barrier and in the process came across the two persons occupying the taxi and moving in the direction of Techiman.
He said after interrogation they were arrested and handed over to the Sunyani Municipal Police who, after investigations, put them before the Fiapre Circuit Court.