The police in Kumasi have arrested 34 people from two hotels for loitering. The suspects included 23 men and 11 women, six of them from neighbouring countries. Mr Gideon Boateng, Ashanti Regional Police Public Relations Officer, told the GNA in Kumasi on Friday that the proprietors of the hotels, Madam Adwoa Fordjour and Nana Gyambibi were also arrested.

He named the hotels as the Abidjan and Plaza hotels. Mr Boateng said two of the suspects, Simon Ananfo, 24, and Thomas Adokor, 20, all of Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region, were found with a locally manufactured pistol and a quantity of a substance suspected to be gun-powder during a search in their room.

According to the police PRO, they had been charged with the offence of possessing firearms without authority. The two hotel proprietors, he said, were also charged with failing to register lodgers' names in the hotel lodging registers, while the others had been charged with loitering.

Mr Boateng said on Thursday, 11 April, the police striking force in Kumasi, acting upon a tip-off, rounded up the suspects at the Abidjan and Plaza hotels all in Kumasi. Mr Boateng said they would be put before court soon.