A Koforidua Circuit Court presided over by Mrs Mercy Adei-Kotei has sentenced one Maduku Kwadwo to 15 years imprisonment in hard labour on two counts of conspiracy to commit a crime to wit: robbery.

Kwadwo pleaded not guilty to the charges and the court in passing the sentence took into account the fact that he had been incarcerated from 2017, where he jumped bail, and was re-arrested in 2019, and detained until the final determination of the trial.

The facts of the case as presented by Assistant State Attorney, Mr Dickson Donkor were that, somewhere in April 2017, at about 2100 hours, the complainant James Edison, 19 motor rider was approached by the accused and another person now at large at a lorry station, and requested that he drove him to Brukum in the Yilo Krobo area.

The Prosecution said the complainant then carried the accused persons on his motorbike with registration M-17-ER 60, whiles on the way, on reaching a portion of the road between Klo-Agogo and Brukum, the accused alerted the complainant that his cap had fallen off so he should stop for him to pick it up.

He said in the process, the accused pulled a gun and threatened him that if he did not surrender the motorbike, he would be harmed.

Mr Donkor said sensing danger, the complainant surrendered the motorbike and then rushed back to the Klo-Agogo lorry station to inform the others there, a Police report was made and messages were sent to various Police checkpoints on the way about the incident, whiles a team also begun a search for the motorbike.

The prosecution said later, the two were sighted in a village in the Okere district with the motorbike where the youth in the area rushed to arrest them, but managed to seize only Maduku, but his accomplice escaped.

He was then sent to the Obawale Police station, where he was identified by the complainant and the motorbike retrieved in a bush around the village where he was arrested.