An Accra circuit court presided over by Rosemond Baah Torsu has remanded five police officers who are alleged to have extorted an amount of GH¢20,000 from a student at East Legon to police custody.

The five accused persons – Cpl Redeemer Agama, General Constables Wishwell Odoo, Evans Amwagsi, Lawat Agyapong and Sean Kuvordo have been charged for three offences.

They have been charged with conspiracy to rob, robbery and conspiracy to giving bribe to influence public officer contrary to Sections 23 (1) and 252(1) of Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act29).

But, they pleaded not guilty to all charges.

They were remanded into custody for two weeks after the prosecutor had informed the court that, the police had not completed investigations and needed time.

They are to reappear in court on June 9, 2021.

Brief facts

The brief facts of the case as presented to the court by prosecution were that, the complainant in the case Jeffery Mackcon Yeboah is a student and businessman while the accused persons are serving police officers attached to the Rapid Department Force-RDF at the National Police Headquarters in Accra and they usually perform vehicular patrol duties.

The prosecutor said, on May 24, at about 0200 hours, the complainant was on board an Uber taxi around UPSA area when the accused persons who were in Operation Calm Life police service vehicle with arms meant for night patrol duties stopped him and forcibly removed him from the Uber taxi into the police patrol vehicle.

According to the prosecutor, the accused persons falsely accused the victim of having been involved in scamming.

The prosecutor said, they threatened the victim with harm and asked him to handover to them every penny on him and further seized the victim’s phone when he was in the police vehicle with them as they drove with him, from Madina to Awudome Cemetery at Kaneshie at night.

According to the prosecutor, they threatened to harm the victim should he fail to handover to them cash of GHc20,000.

He said, they threatened the victim with harm at gunpoint and asked him to transfer cash from his bank account through online banking system into his mobile money account.

The prosecutor said, the accused persons continued to hold the victim hostage in the police patrol vehicle to Kwame Nkrumah Circle where they met another accomplice of theirs who was in a civil dress.

He told the court that, their accomplice joined them in the police patrol vehicle and they ordered the victim to transfer cash of GHc20,000 from his Ecobank Account.

Having robbed the victim of his money, the accused persons deleted the transaction records on his phone, sent him to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange and called on a taxi driver where they forced him into it and asked the driver to drive on without looking back.

He said, a report was made to the police at the Kaneshie District and the police investigation led to the arrest of the five serving police officers and cash exhibit of the GHc20,000 retrieved from them.

According to him, after the arrest of the accused persons, they bribed the investigator with cash sum of ghc2,500 to cover them up in the case and same was retained as exhibit.

The prosecutor informed the court that an itemized bill has been sent to Abeka District Court for disclosures and efforts are being made to arrest their civilian accomplice whose mobile money account was used in the facilitation of the crime.

Meanwhile investigations are still on going.