A Circuit Court Judge, Rosemond Baah Torsu has remanded five police officers who allegedly extorted 20,000 cedis from a student at East Legon into police custody.
They have been charged with conspiracy to rob, robbery, and conspiracy to giving bribe to influence public officer.
The accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charges.
This was after the prosecution informed the court that, the police have not completed investigations and needed time.
The brief facts of the case as presented to the court by the prosecution were that the complainant in the case, Jeffery Mackcon Yeboah, is a student and businessman while the accused persons are serving police officers attached to the Rapid Department Force-RDF at the National Police Headquarters in Accra and they usually perform vehicular patrol duties.
The prosecution said on the 24th of this month at about 02:00 am, the complainant was on board an Uber taxi around UPSA when the accused persons, who were in Operation Calm Life police service vehicle with arms meant for night patrol duties stopped him and forcedly removed him from the Uber taxi into the police patrol vehicle.
According to the prosecution, they falsely accused the victim of having been involved in scamming.
The prosecution said they threatened the victim and asked him to handover every penny on him and further seized the victim’s phone while they were in the police vehicle from Madina to Awudome Cemetery at Kaneshie at night.
According to the prosecution, they threatened the victim with harm at gunpoint, demanding that he transfer 20,000 cedis cash from his bank account through the online banking system into his mobile money account and forward same to them.
The prosecutor said the accused persons continued to hold the victim hostage in the police vehicle to Kwame Nkrumah Circle where they met another accomplice who was in a civilian dress. He told the court that, their accomplice joined them in the police patrol vehicle.
Having robbed the victim of his money, the accused persons deleted the transaction records on his phone, sent him to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange and called a taxi driver where they forced him into it and asked the driver to drive on without looking back.
He said, a report was made to the police at the Kaneshie District and police investigation led to the arrest of the five serving police officers and cash exhibit of 20,000 cedis retrieved from them.
According to him, after the arrest of the accused persons, they bribed the investigator with two thousand, five hundred cedis to cover them up in the case and same was retained as exhibit.
The prosecutor informed the court that an itemized bill has been sent to Abeka District Court for disclosures and efforts are being made to arrest the civilian accomplice whose mobile money account was used in committing the crime.
Meanwhile investigations are ongoing and they are to appear in court on the ninth of next month.
