The Enchi District Magistrate Court has remanded three people into police custody after they allegedly robbed an illegal miner and raped his fiancée in the Western Region.
The three accused persons are Alex Obeng (alias Power Money), a 24-year-old illegal miner; Ransford Osei Coffie (alias King or Anointing), a 29-year-old driver; and Johnson Adu (alias Black Nana), a 24-year-old gold buyer.
A duplicate docket has since been prepared and forwarded to the Attorney General’s office for study and advice.
Prosecutor Detective Police Chief Inspector Joseph Kwadwo Agyare informed the court, presided over by Lawrence Buanor-Buer, that the complainants, Stephen Amihere and his fiancée, Christiana Mensah, share an apartment in Desueano.
He said the accused persons lived at Desueano and Abokyia, all in the Aowin Municipality of the Western North Region.
On Tuesday (2 January 2024), at about 1:30 am, the accused persons, armed with a locally manufactured pistol and a knife, went to the complainants’ apartment to rob them.
Detective Chief Inspector Agyare said that when Obeng, Coffie and Adu got to the premises, Obeng stood outside to provide security.
He said Coffie and Adu subjected Amihere to severe beatings, ordered him to surrender all his money but he fell unconscious and they tied his two hands with sellotape and sealed his mouth.
The two then rushed to the complainant’s fiancée, tied her hands, and sealed her mouth with sellotape.
Coffie was masked while his counterpart Adu was unmasked, and they had sex with her in turns before fleeing with an iPhone 6X, an iPhone 11, a Jordan sneaker, shirts, a belt, a handbag, a wristwatch, a gold detector machine and GHC300.
According to the prosecution, after the accused persons left, the complainant’s fiancée was able to untie herself and raise an alarm, which drew the attention of residents in the area, including the chairman of the neighbourhood watchdog committee, who testified in the case.
At the scene, the witness found an itel mobile phone, and he went through the call logs, found Obeng’s contact information, which subsequently led to his arrest.
Detective Chief Inspector Agyare said, when they questioned Obeng about the owner of the mobile phone, he mentioned that it belonged to Coffie and he led the police to a guest house at Abokyia, where they were lodging but met his absence.
The police conducted a search in the room and found a black bag containing a Ghana card and an Access Bank ATM card belonging to Obeng.
They also found a voter identification card, a Ghana card, passport and a National Health Insurance card, all bearing the name of Coffie and a mask.
Coffie and Adu were later arrested by some volunteers, and they handed them over to the police to assist in the investigation.
Further police checks revealed that Obeng, Coffie and Adu were friends and had earlier planned to rob the complainant because they claimed the complainant had money.
The prosecution said Obeng lived in the same community as the complainants, and he had been leaking information to Coffie and Adu about their movements.
Detective Chief Inspector Agyare said to execute the plan, the accused persons rented a room in a guest house where they have been lodging for the past three weeks.
Reporting by Isaac Hughes in the Western Region
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