TWO persons dressed in a camouflaged military gear are in the grips of the law after their foiled attempt to rob the Hansol Small Scale Mining Company at Manso Adagya in the Ashanti Region of their gold.
The 50-year-old driver, Paul Adutwum, and his accomplice, Nana Yaw Kwarteng, 20, were alleged to be among a gang of eight robbers who went to the farming community with guns and cutlasses to dispossess their victims of their produce.
A Circuit Court in Bekwai yesterday remanded the accused persons in prison custody following their arrest at Manso Adagya by police. They would come back to court on August 20, 2012.
Detective Sergeant Stephen Ofori, police prosecutor, informed the court presided over by Daniel Kwaku Obeng that, the complainant in the case was the manager of Hansol Small Scale Mining Company, while Nana Yaw Kwarteng and Paul Adutwum were student and driver respectively.
According to prosecution, on April, 4, 2012, at about 8am, the accused persons who were among eight people suspected to be armed robbers, set off from Trede near Kumasi to Manso Adagya, a village near Manso Nkwanta in a Hyundai mini bus.
He said the robbers, upon reaching Atabrakoso, another village in the Manso area, parked their vehicle registered, AS 299-12, during which time three of them, including the suspects, put on military accoutrements and proceeded to the Adagya community.
They later crossed the River Oda to the mining site at Adagya, around 4pm where the first accused person, Nana Yaw Kwarteng, introduced them to the miners as military officers, who had been sent by the government to inspect documents that permitted them to operate as a small scale mining company.
D/Sgt. Ofori narrated that Kwarteng, who acted as the commander of the group, ordered the workers of the company to lie on their stomach at gun point.
Shortly after this unlawful order, one of the robbers took a shovel and began to fetch the gold quartz into a sack, prosecution stated.
He said the action of the gangsters raised the suspicion of the miners, prompting one of them to take up two cutlasses and walk briskly towards the robbers.
Sensing danger, the armed robbers who were in possession of single-barrel guns and cutlasses, surprisingly took to their heels in an attempt to escape.
Prosecution asserted that the miners with assistance from members of the Adagya community apprehended two of the gang robbers, who happened to be the two accused persons.
D/Sgt. Ofori said while the 50-year-old man was arrested after getting stuck in a mud, Yaw Kwarteng was given a chase and arrested subsequently in a bush.
They were both taken to Datano police station where they were provisionally charged of robbery and arraigned before the court after police investigation.
The police prosecutor indicated that frantic efforts were being made to arrest other members of the group.
By Ernest Kofi Adu
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