Crime & Punishment of Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Source: D-Guide

Five Jail Breakers Grabbed

Five out of the 10 convicts who managed to escape from the Sekondi Prison last Sunday in Hollywood style, have been arrested by the police.

The Western Regional Police Commander, DCOP Hamidu Mahama, told Daily Guide that the police had launched a manhunt for the other jail breakers. DCOP Mahama gave the names of the arrested escapees as Kalibi Amadu, a Beninois who was jailed 60 years for robbery, Kweku Abeiku, jailed 20 years and Mohammed Gariba, a Nigerian who got 60 years for the same offence.

The rest were Raphael Laweh and Ebenezer Okole Tetteh alias Rasta who were jailed 40 years each for robbery.?

The Regional Police Commander disclosed that two of the jail breakers, Kalibi Amadu and Kweku Abeiku, were arrested at the gate of the prison yard when they attempted to escape. He said the other three were arrested in the early hours of Monday around the Beposo toll booth near Sekondi when they purportedly decided to travel to Accra.

A police source told Daily Guide that the three convicts who were in an Accra-bound bus from Takoradi jumped through the windows of the vehicle on seeing the police at the Inchaban Barrier but the security agents gave them a hot chase and with the help of some members of the community, managed to arrest them at Beposo.?

The source noted that the prison officers were collaborating with the police at the various check-points and border posts in the region in an effort to arrest the other jail breakers at large.?

Last Sunday, at about 12:30 pm, 10 prisoners serving various jail-terms at the Sekondi Prisons managed to escape from jail after attacking warders at the prison.

?Daily Guide gathered that an unidentified visitor went to the premises of the Sekondi prison yard to visit three convicts who were arrested in October last year for attempting to rob a cocoa purchasing clerk at Gwira Banso and were sentenced to 120 years some weeks ago.

Information had it that at the time of the visit, two prison officers were on duty and as one of them decided to go and call the three convicts, the visitor stabbed the other prison officer at the gate of the yard with a knife.

The three prisoners also attacked the officer who went to call them and started to beat him up. Seven other convicts who saw the ‘action’ also managed to come out from their cubicles to join the three to beat up the officer. The convicts then entered the prison’s armory and took eight ‘G 3’ rifles, broke the main gate and came out.

According to sources, when the prisoners came out, a tro-tro bus carrying passengers had packed in front of the yard.

The prisoners shot the driver in the right arm and ordered the passengers to get down.The prisoners then got on board the tro-tro and sped away but were given a hot chase by a combined team of the military and police who managed to arrest two of the jail breakers and retrieved five of the rifles.

The tro-tro driver, Daily Guide learnt, was admitted to the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Sekondi for treatment.??