Kumasi, July 30, GNA - A Kumasi High Court presided over by Mr Justice Kwadwo Ansah Pobih, has sentenced three accused persons on their own plea to 63 years imprisonment in hard labour for conspiracy to rob, robbery and causing harm to Police Sergeant D.K. Nsesonkpa of the Obuasi Central Police Command.

Each of the accused persons Mohammed Ibrahim, 28, Arthur John, 30 both small scale mining operators and Kwabena Oppong, 38, a trader all resident in Obuasi would serve 21 years in prison.

Mrs Ellen Kwawukume, Chief Attorney for Ashanti Region, prosecuting told the court that the accused persons in the company of 40 others on the night of October 24, 2005 attacked Group Five Company, a subsidiary mining company at Obuasi.

She said Police Sergeant Nsesonkpa who was on duty at the premises of the Company with four other security men took cover fired a warning shot to ward off the gangsters.

Mrs Kwawukume said whilst some members of the gang took to their heels, others moved towards the direction of the warning shot and laid ambush and beat up Police Sergeant Nsesonkpa inflicted severe wounds on his eyebrow, the head and took away his gun an SMG riffle. The Chief Attorney said some weeks after the incident Police Sergeant Nsesonkpa spotted Ibrahim and with the support from two police constables arrested him and when he (Ibrahim) was searched, the police found the gun, an SMG riffle concealed in a polythene sack Ibrahim was carrying.

She said Ibrahim mentioned Arthur and Oppong as accomplices and they were arrested in Kumasi and after investigations charged with the offence.