An Accra Circuit Court on Tuesday handed a 30-year jail term to Kingsley Ibe, 23, a Nigerian, for robbery and causing unlawful damage.
According to Ghanaweb.com, Ibe, together with three others, now at large, were said to have caused unlawful damage to a metal door worth Ghc1,000, the property of Petrobay Filling Station, and robbed the workers of the filling station of Ghc700 and two mobile phones.
The convict would serve five years for causing unlawful damage and 30 years for robbery, both to run concurrently.
Presiding judge, Mr Francis Obiri, giving his judgment said, robbery was on the increase and it was high time people who engaged in it be given harsher sentences to serve as a deterrent to others and for well meaning people to live without fear of harm.
He said the court found him guilty of the offences based on his own admission of the offence during trial.
Prosecuting, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Patrick Morkeh told the court that, the complainant in this case, Kemuel Asare, is the Manager of Petrobay Filling station at new Boatianor, near Weija, while the convict Kingsley Ibe is a Nigerian national and a scrap dealer.
He said on April 1, at about 0200 hours a witness in the case, Samuel Twumasi Addo, a security man at the said filling station, spotted two young men approaching the station in the dark.
He said the witness approached them and asked of their mission because the station had closed. Suddenly one of the robbers pulled a gun and threatened to shoot the security man.
The prosecution said the rest of the robbers numbering three subjected the security man to severe beatings, tied him up and pushed him into one of the lubricants changing holes which contained water.
He told the court that the rest invaded the station, broke into the mall and attacked the rest of the attendants, who heard the shout of the security man and had come out to aid him.
DSP Morkeh said the robbers tied the attendants and made away with the night sales amounting to GH 700 and two mobile phones.
He said the Weija police received a distress call and proceeded to the scene but the suspects on seeing the police fled through a swamp.
He said the police combed the area for the suspects and in the process the convict was found with his attire soaked with mud from the swamp.
The prosecution said the convict was searched and two mobile phones were seen on him but he was not able to give the numbers of the phones.He was taken to the filling station where the victims identified him as one of the culprits.
He told the court that Comfort Damalia, a pump attendant in the case, identified the Nokia phone as hers and when it was turned on, her image showed up.
The convict then admitted the offence in his caution statement.
In another incident, a Cambodian court sentenced a Nigerian and two other foreigners from Australia and France to between 23 and 27 years in prison on Wednesday for attempted heroin smuggling.
According to Sydney Morning Herald, Australian woman Yoshe Ann Taylor, 41, and French woman Charlene Savarino, 19, were arrested at Phnom Penh International Airport with 2.2 kilos (4.8 pounds) of heroin in a backpack in September last year.
Precious Chineme Nwoko, 23, from Nigeria was arrested the same month at his rental home in the capital.
Judge Kor Vandy at Phnom Penh Municipal Court said the three defendants were guilty of “cross-border smuggling of illegal drugs.”
Savarino was sentenced to 25 years in jail, while Taylor was handed 23 years and Nwoko received a 27-year jail term.
They declined to comment when asked about the court ruling.
Two other Nigerian men, who remain at large, were sentenced in their absence to 27 years in jail each for their involvement in the case.
During their trial last month, the two women said the backpack belonged to Savarino’s boyfriend Nwoko and that he was sending it to an unidentified man in Australia.
Nwoko was sentenced to 27 years in jail and Savarino 25 years. All three denied the drug belonged to them. “The trio were charged with illegally cross-border t
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