Tema, Sept. 18, GNA -- An unidentified armed robber was shot dead at dawn on Sunday when the Tema police at Community 12 engaged eight armed robbers in a shoot-out during their operations in the community. Chief Superintendent Joshua Dogbeda, Tema Regional Crime Officer, who disclosed this to newsmen at his office in Tema on Sunday said the body of the armed robber has been deposited at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital mortuary.

Chief Superintendent Dogbeda told the press that at about 0130 hours at dawn on Sunday, eight armed robbers attacked three nearby houses at Community 12.

The robbers, the crime office said, carrying pump action shot guns and locally manufactured pistols, jumped into the houses, used hard and heavy cement blocks to break the doors of their victims, and attacked the occupants in their bed rooms.

He said the armed robbers managed to take away two million cedis cash and two mobile phones from the first house they attacked. Chief Superintendent Dogbeda indicated that in the other two houses, the armed robbers made away with money and severely beat up the occupants.

The Regional Crime Officer said when information reached them the Community 12 police came under gunfire from the armed robbers, and in return, engaged the robbers in a shoot-out. He said by the time the firing died down, the unidentified armed robber was found lying wounded in a pool of blood by a gutter, with the rest escaping on foot into a nearby bush.

The Regional Crime Officer told newsmen that immediately he had told the police where he and his colleagues were coming from, the wounded armed robber died.

Chief Superintendent Dogbeda said a search on the deceased revealed 26 live AA cartridges, 10 live garden gun cartridges and 370,000 cedis soaked with blood and two mobile phones he had robbed from his victims. He disclosed that intelligent reports gathered by the police revealed that most of the recent robberies within the municipality were as a result of information given to the robbers by house-helps of the victims.

The Regional Crime Officer added that in most cases, land guards hired by some landlords to protect their houses turned round to dish information out to the robbers.

He, therefore, appealed to employers who would want to engage the services of house-helps to have them vetted by the police to ascertain their background before accepting them in their houses. "In spite of the handicap in logistics, the Tema police with the assistance from their counterparts from Michel Camp will continue to take the fight to the armed robbers at the peril of their lives", Chief Superintendent Dogbeda assured residents in the municipality. 18 Sept. 05