Sekondi, March 24 GNA - A Sekondi High Court on Wednesday sentenced four people to a total of 95 years' imprisonment with hard labour for armed robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and aiding and abetting crime.

They were: Shaibu Gabswusore, alias Osama, aged 42, jailed 55 years on two counts of robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery; Abeiku Hayford aged 21, would go in for 25 years for robbery; Mohammed Tijani, 76, and Alhaji Chomokoh, 73, were jailed 10 years each for aiding and abetting crime.

They all pleaded not guilty.

Prosecuting, a Principal State Attorney, Mr. William Kpobi told the Court that on June 27, 2003, Shaibu and Hayford went to the house of Nicholas Aboagye at Apowa, near Kwesiminstim and robbed him of 200,000 cedis and a sound system.

The robbers, who were armed with an AK 47 assault rifle that had been stolen by Shaibu, used the butt of the gun to inflict wounds on his head.

Mr Kpobi told the Court presided over by Mr Justice Clemence J. Honyenugah that all the while, Hayford, who was wearing an artificial "golden teeth" during the incident, held the Mr Aboagye's wife, Elisabeth Arhin hostage with a pistol and threatened to shoot her if she resisted.

They bolted with the money and the sound system. He said the victims recognised the accused persons by their voices and the "false gold teeth" that Hayford had.

Mr Kpobi said after a series of robberies, Shaibu handed over the rifle, which had a bullet stuck in it, to Tijani for safekeeping until they found a prospective buyer.

He said Tijani on receipt of the rifle removed the magazine and hid it in his pen and gave the rifle to Chomokoh, an Ex-serviceman, who dismantled it, removed the stuck bullet and kept the gun without informing any of the security agencies.

Before sentence was passed, the four accused persons, pleaded for leniency.