Five Engineers were on Monday sentenced to six years imprisonment each by an Accra Circuit Court charged with conspiracy to commit crime and stealing. Frank Lemdi Prikutse, Alex Duker, Emmanuel Achiatao, Robert Appiah-Mends, and Samuel Mensah all pleaded not guilty to the charges but were convicted after trial. They are to serve six years each for conspiracy to commit crime and six years each for stealing 1280 meters of 1000mm/ff cables worth GHC268,800.00 belonging to Vodafone Ghana. The sentences are to run concurrently Prosecuting, Police Chief Inspector Jubiok Michaels told the court that, the complainant, Kweku Paintsil, is a private Investigation Intelligence Manager of Vodafone, whilst the five accused persons are workers of Vodafone.

He said on April 1, one Eva Antwi, the Regional Operations Manager detailed Prikutse to recover 220 metres of the Vodafone redundant underground 1000mm FF cables from Teshie-Nungua exchange to be used to undertake some repair works within the Achimota exchange.

The prosecution said Prikutse in turn assigned the job to his other four colleagues, Duker, Achiayao, Appiah-Mends and Mensah, who undertook the cable recovery under his supervision.

He told the court that on April 2, the Corporate Security Department of Vodafone received intelligence that the recovered cables were in excess of 1,280 metres valued at GHC268,800.00 and had been sold to a scrap dealer at Ashaiman.

He said Prikutse and his accomplices were arrested and handed over to the Airport Police, who charged them with the offence.