Bono East: Robbers gun down military officer

The Police has confirmed that a 41-year-old military officer from the Third Battalion of Infantry, Sunyani, Sargent Job Kwame Odei was killed by suspected armed robbers on the Prang-Kintampo Highway in the Pru East District of the Bono East Region.

According to the police, the unfortunate incident occurred at about 9:00 pm last Friday on a section of the road between Prang and Adjalaja, a farming community on the main Prang - Abease road.

The Yeji District Police Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Eric Awiadem, who confirmed the incident to the Graphic Online, said the military officer was shot on the right side of his chest.

“Though it is unclear what the military officer was doing in the area, preliminary enquiries revealed that the late military man was in charge of the unregistered Great Wall Wingle Pick up travelling from Sunyani to Yeji to visit his relatives”, DSP Awiadem stated.

He said eyewitnesses told the police that on reaching a section of the road between Prang and Adjalaja village on the main Prang-Abease Highway, about six armed men who were wielding guns and robbing other commuters at gunpoint, shot him and he died at the spot.

DSP Awiadem said during the act, the robbers upon spotting Odei who was in his military uniform, sensed danger and asked him to step down from his car.

He said as soon as he got down, the suspected armed robbers started beating him mercilessly before some of them suggested that he should be killed.

DSP Awiadem said the deceased pleaded with them and in the process, he decided to run away to save his life after he noticed that they were planning to end his life.

He said the six suspected armed robbers gave him a hot chase, caught him and one of them shot and killed him before they fled into the bush.

DSP Eric Awiadem explained that on Friday, May 21, 2021, at about 9:00 pm, the police had information that someone believed to be a military officer had been shot dead by armed robbers on the Prang and Adjalaja section of the main Prang-Abease road.

He added officers from the Yeji Patrol Team rushed to the crime scene and found a male adult fully dressed in a military uniform lying in a pool of blood in a supine position dead.

DSP Eric Awiadem said when the police inspected the body, they found out that there was a gunshot wound on the deceased's right chest.