Crime & Punishment of Wednesday, 27 July 2005

Source: GNA

Court jails farmer for robbery

Tamale, July 27, GNA- A High Court at Tamale sentenced Ziblim Fuseini, 26, who inflicted cutlass wounds on his victim and robbed him of two million cedis, to 15 years imprisonment.

The convict who was charged for causing unlawful harm and robbery, would serve another one-year jail term for escaping from lawful custody at the Karaga Police Station in the Karaga District of the Northern Region in May 2001.

Mr Komla Agbeko-Kra, a State Attorney, told the court presided over by Mr Justice Victor Doegah that, Fuseini was a friend to the complainant, Ziblim Abudulai, a groundnut seller at the Karaga Market.

He said on May 25, 2001, Fuseini, who was riding a bicycle, met the complainant and told him that he had some groundnuts for sale and the complainant expressed interest in buying them.

Mr Agbeko-Kra said the accused, therefore, offered to carry the complainant on his bicycle to the village for the groundnuts. On their way, the accused said he was tired and asked the complainant to take over the riding.

Mr Agbeko-Kra said when they had gone some distance, the accused drew a cutlass he had hidden on him and inflicted several cuts on the complainant, and tried to strangle the victim and in the process he fell unconscious.

The accused took away two million cedis from the complainant. A passer-by however, found the victim and carried him on his bicycle to the Karaga Hospital from where he was referred to the Tamale Regional Hospital.

The accused was later arrested and placed in police custody but he managed to escape to Bawku in the Upper East Region, where he committed another offence, for which he was jailed for four years. While the accused was serving his sentence, the police had information about his incarceration, so they requested for his transfer to Tamale to stand trial for causing unlawful harm and robbery, the prosecution told the court.