Man, 25, Jailed Two Years For Issuing Threat

A 25-YEAR-OLD storekeeper who issued a threat, via a text message, to his employer, with the view to extorting GH¢5,000 from her, has been jailed for two years.

Justice Yaw Asante, the storekeeper, pleaded guilty before an Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Mrs Ivy Heward-Mills, and was sentenced on his own plea after he had been charged with threat of harm.

Asante sent the threatening text via an unfamiliar number to his boss, Mrs Mary Siaw-Marfo, about 7:52 p.m. on September 28, 2008.

The message read, “On the 10th, we are coming to your house. What we need is GH¢5,000 (¢50 million). The money or you will go down. Put the money at the gate and sleep and you will be free.”

A highly placed source at the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) told the Daily Graphic that Mrs Siaw-Marfo reported the threat to the BNI for investigations.

It said the investigations traced the text message to Asante and another person, and during interrogations, Asante confessed issuing the threatening text but explained that it was meant to be only a joke and that he did not mean any harm.

Story by Albert K. Salia