A 24-YE AR-old student of Abro Media Institute has been arrested by the police for allegedly sending threatening text messages to the General Secretary of the People's National Congress (PNC), Benard Monah.

The suspect, Suraj Elyas alias Dove, was arrested yesterday along the Graph­ic Road in Accra after several efforts by the police to track him down.

Briefing the media at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) head­quarters, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Joseph Darkwah said the PNC General Secretary reported to the police that he received a text message on his phone at dawn on November 8, 2013 threatening him to call the sender of the message before the following morning.

He said the suspect reportedly called Mr. Monah saying that he and three others had been paid to assassi­nate him (Monah).

ASP Darkwah said the suspect then asked Mr. Monah to pay him GHC l0,000 so he could persuade his colleagues from carrying out his assassination, since he (suspect) knew the General Sec­retary personally. Mr. Monah, according to the ASP, told the suspect that he did not have such an amount.

Again, on November 12, the same year, the suspect reportedly sent anoth­er threatening text message to Mr. Monah which read "fella over pain" accordingly meaning "failure to pay feel pain".

According to ASP Darkwah, the young man then told Mr. Monah that he should remember what they did to Mr. Ken Dapaah, adding "the suspect said Mr. Dapaah could not come out to the public to tell all that we did to him".

ASP Darkwah noted that some per­sonnel of the police then went to the Cir­cuit Court to ask for an order to contact the network service provider that the suspect, Suraj Elyas, was using to enable them to track him down, adding that "on 6th January 2014, we got the order from the Circuit Court and served it to the network provider".

After careful analysis, ASP Darkwah said the police managed to track down the suspect "along the Graphic Road".

ASP Darkwah noted that the motive behind the act was that the suspect during interroga­tion, claimed he was instrumental in Mr. Monah's campaign for the position of General Secretary and that after Mr. Monah's victory, he, the suspect plead­ed with him for financial assistance to cater for his education but was turned down.

The ASP said the suspect then con­fessed that he decided to use threats to extort the money he needed from Mr. Monah.

The suspect has been remanded in police custody for further investigation and would be arraigned before the Accra Circuit Court.