General News of Sunday, 30 November 2008

Source: GNA

Truck kills two highway robbery victims at Breku

Breku (Ash), Nov. 30, GNA - An early dawn highway robbery at Breku near Asankare in the Asante Akim South District on Saturday morning, resulted in the death of two of the victims who were ran over by a "Man Diesel" truck minutes after the robbery.

Four others, who sustained various degrees of injury, together with the bodies of the dead, were taken to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.

The robbers, numbering six, snatched a Nissan pick-up with registration number GV 116 V, belonging to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi and bolted with it. The robbers, who blocked the Breku Forest portion of the Accra-Kumasi highway with large beams, made away with monies and valuables running into several thousands of cedis from passengers on board the cars caught up in the blockage.

Mr Simon Yaw Boribah, Assistant Registrar at the Students Affairs Office of the KNUST, who was driving the Nissan Pick-up told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that, the robbers took away GH¢740 and two mobile phones from him and three others on board. He said they were on their way to the funeral of a student at Peki in the Volta Region and on reaching the spot they were compelled to stop by the roadblock.

According to him six armed men emerged from the bush and asked them to surrender all their monies and mobile phones and also seized their vehicle.

"They then turned their attention to other vehicles coming from Accra and robbed the passengers of their monies before bolting with our car", he explained.

Superintendent Francis Aggripa Oppong, Acting Konongo Divisional Police Commander, when contacted confirmed the incident and said, the police had information about the robbery at 0330 hours and rushed to the scene, but the robbers had already escaped. He said, while some passengers were standing by the roadside counting their losses, a "Man Diesel" truck loaded with cement with registration number GE 4029 W heading towards Kumasi had a brake failure and ran through them, killing the two instantly. He said the Police were making efforts to trace the robbers.