Cop grabbed for armed robbery

Cop Tetteh Samadzi and his accomplice, Foster One Constable Tetteh Samadzi of the Panthers Unit of the Ghana Police Service, who was allegedly a party to a four-man robbery gang at Pokuase near Accra, has been arrested along with a certain Foster, who is said to be the ring leader.

The constable, known also as TT, according to one of the victims, who incidentally is a friend of Foster's.

Justice Acquah told DAILY GUIDE that he was attacked in his house at Ayawaso near Pokuase at about 1:00am on Friday March 6, 2009.

The robbers who were about four in number beat Justice, an electrician, to pulp when he insisted he had no money in the house.

He said his wife and tenant were threatened amidst gunshots and his room ransacked.

The robbers made away with GH¢250.00 and two mobile phones.

After his ordeal, he called his mother who lived some distance away to inform his brothers who then organized some youth in the area to mount a search for the robbers.

The victim explained that he spotted a VW Golf car which had no tail light parked in a location known in the area as a haven for such criminals, but as soon as he approached the car, the driver sped off.

He called his brother to further inform him about details of the car.

Justice said he was surprised when he saw a policeman driving the car as it approached a barrier he had mounted. When the policeman asked what the problem was, Justice reluctantly told him that he had been robbed, and allowed the car to pass.

When Justice heard that the suspects had outwitted the search group again, he proceeded to Foster's house where he saw a man resting in the suspect's room. When he asked the whereabouts of Foster he was told he was not around.

Suddenly one of the guys who had clubbed Justice's leg with a metal rod during the robbery emerged and engaged the victim in a confrontation. At that moment Foster emerged.

An argument that nearly ended in a fight ensued between the two but they were separated.

Later in the day when conferring with his brother, Foster resurface with the policeman to explain to the victim's family that he was innocent of the charges being leveled against him.

It was then that the policeman was identified as the one who was chauffeuring the armed robbers and offering them protection under the guise of searching for the criminals.

But for the timely intervention of the Pokuase police the two would have been lynched.

In his statement at the police station, Evans Boakye a newspaper vendor who also arrived to lodge a complaint that he was robbed at about 3am that dawn by the same group, said the miscreants nearly killed him.

Boakye said his room was ransacked and three phones belonging to him, his wife and his sister in-law as well as an amount of GH¢150 were taken away.

He also said Forster had gained notoriety with regard to robbery in the area and is known by almost everyone for his involvement in several of such cases in Pokuase and its environs.

Some of the concrete blocks which were used to break the doors of the victims were found in the golf car registration number GT 2472 R. Items including live cartridges as well as shells of spent cartridges and AK 47 and a pistol were reportedly found in the car and have been kept at the Amasaman Police Station as exhibits. The car which has no tail lights also had a police sticker on it.

By Rocklyn Antonio