Court remands seven persons for possessing arms
Seven persons arrested for allegedly possessing firearms at Dzantong-Daboise near Salaga in the Northern Region were remanded last Tuesday by the Accra Circuit Court.
The accused persons were arrested with two AK-47 assault rifles and were reported to have illegally undertaken military training on December 24, 2015.
They are Issah Suale, a mason; Mahama Saani Muftawu, a trader; Mohammed Alhassan, a nurse; Alhassan Abdul-Dayan, a student; Abdulai Ibrahim Wumpini, a mechanic; Umar Ibrahim Alhassan, a mechanic, and Andani Mohammed Taufiq, a teacher.
However, an accomplice, Iddrisu Ibrahim, a teacher, is currently at large and the police have mounted a search for him.
The accused were charged with three counts of possession of firearms without authority, unlawful training and abetment of unlawful possession of firearms.
They, however, pleaded not guilty to all the three charges and were remanded to reappear on January 19, 2016.
They were remanded after the prosecutor, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mr Aidan Dery, had told the court that the police were still conducting investigations into the matter.
He said due to the sensitive nature of the case, the court should remand the accused persons to prevent them from hampering police investigations.
Counsel’s reaction
However, the defence counsel, Mr Alex M. Osei, said since the arrest of the accused on December 24, 2015, the police had failed to put them before court, saying that “the 48-hour rule was thrown to the dogs”.
He told the court that the offence levelled against his clients were bailable offences and, therefore, prayed the court to admit them to bail.
He said if the accused were granted bail, they would appear before the court and not hamper police investigations into the case.
Background
Prosecuting, DSP Dery told the court, presided over by Mr Aboagye Tandoh, that all the accused persons lived in Tamale suburbs in the Northern Region.
He said the accused, except Wumpini, were all members of the “Tabligh brothers”, an international mobile preachers’ wing of Sunni Muslims.
On December 24, 2015, Suale, Muftawu and Ibrahim, who is now at large, arrived at Dzantong-Daboise village near Salaga on two motorbikes with a package tied on one of the bikes.
The prosecutor said the youth in the community, suspecting the three to be Sakawa ritual murderers looking for a place to bury the corpse of a murdered person, accosted them.
“The youth arrested Suale and Muftawu while Ibrahim escaped. Two AK-47 rifles were found to be the content of their package,” DSP Dery said.
He said soon after the arrest of the two, Alhassan, Abdul-Dayan, Umar and Taufiq surfaced in the community in turns to rescue their friends but they were also arrested.
“A search conducted in the respective abodes of the accused person uncovered 16 spent AK-47 ammunition shells concealed in a bag which were retrieved from Umar’s room.
"A Toshiba laptop computer found to contain videos and documentaries of Islamic militant activities was recovered from Umar’s room,” the prosecutor told the court.
DSP Dery added that in their caution statement, Suale and Muftawu told the police that they and the one at large went to the Dzantong-Daboise community to locate a quiet, secure and safe environment to practise the firing of weapons.
