Policeman remanded for assisting prisoner to escape from custody

A police officer stationed at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Fraud Unit has been caged for allegedly assisting a British incarcerated to escape lawful custody.

Detective Lance Corporal Kwame Adu Asabre is said to have immediately handed over passport of the convict, Harold Davies, to enable him travel back to the United Kingdom.

He has also been accused of forging an official document to assist a convicted British to escape from lawful custody after being slapped with three-year prison term for fraud.

Detective Lance Corporal Asabre has been charged with three counts of forgery of official documents, abetment of crime, namely prisoner escape and corruption by a public officer.

He appeared before an Accra Circuit Court presided over by Her Honour Afua Owusua last Tuesday.

Inspector Atuna Dickson, the prosecutor, told the court that Lance Coporal Asabre, who pleaded not guilty, assisted Davies to escape from lawful custody because the convict promised to help him (policeman) travel abroad.

He said in 2019, a case of defrauding by false pretences, involving Davies, was referred to the accused for investigation and Davies pleaded guilty when he appeared before the court, and was convicted on his own plea and jailed three years.

The prosecutor said a police officer was tasked to escort the British convict to Nsawam Prisons, instead, Detective Lance Coporal Asabre accompanied the convict to his home at Sapeiman, near Accra, to pick up his belongings to escape.

“Investigations revealed that the accused then forged the Police Removal of Prisoner Book to suggest that the convict had been sent and received by authorities of Nsawam Prisons,” the prosecutor disclosed.

The prosecutor said the accused upon his arrest admitted to the offence levelled against him.

The case has been adjourned to April 27 for hearing.

---Daily Guide