2 Persons before court for illegal sand winning

Two persons have been put before the Amanfro District Court on charges of holding hostage, illegal winning of sand, building without permits and threatening to kill.

The two, David Kobia, a businessman and Peter Kobia, unemployed, are both residents at Donkonah-New Bortianor in the Ga South Municipal.

While Peter was arraigned on November 23, 2023, David on the other hand was absent.

Peter was admitted to bail in the sum of GH¢ 40,000 with three sureties.

The two are to re-appear tomorrow (Dec.13).

Prosecution

Prosecuting the case, Inspector Kwakye said the two suspects at 10 a.m. on November 22, took hostage of the complainant, Thomas Yaw Dettoh, Head of the Physical Planning

Department of the Ga South Municipal Assembly and his three colleagues when they visited a site at Donkonah-New Bortianor, on their routine inspection to stop illegal sand winning activity and building without permit at the site.

The prosecutor said on their arrival at the site, the complainant and his colleagues met a pay loader machine winning sand from the site into three tipper trucks and again saw carpenters busy working on an uncompleted building without permit at the site.

The complainant then requested the workers at the site to produce their permit for winning the sand and permit for the building, but that proved futile.

Obstruction

The complainant, the prosecutor said, stopped the workers and warned them to leave the site which they obliged, but the second accused, Peter, who was at the site, obstructed the complainant from performing his lawful duty by holding him and his colleagues hostage, as well as threatening them not to come to the site again, else he would beat them to death.

Peter went to the extent of preventing the complainant and his colleagues from moving out of the site by closing the gate to the fenced and gated property.

The accused kept them hostage for over 30 minutes before letting them out and cautioned them not to be there again.

Complaint

The complainant later reported the case to the Weija Divisional CID for investigation.

The police upon receiving the complaint, visited the site with the complainant and met three tipper trucks loaded with sand moving from the site.

The pay loader machine was also winning sand from the site with the suspected persons present.

The two were then arrested together with the three tipper trucks with registration numbers: GE 6095-23, GT 3992-23 and GN 5367-22 loaded with sand.

They were brought to the Weija Divisional Police Headquarters for investigation.