Teenager arrested for snatching lady’s handbag

Luck eluded a teenager who allegedly attacked a woman on the Mataheko-Kaneshie road with a knife and snatched her bag and mobile phone.

The suspected bag snatcher, who was a pillion rider was nearly lynched by an irate mob while his accomplice, the rider of the motorbike, escaped.

The suspect, identified as Awangaba Abelenya, 19, a labourer, was handed over to the Odorkor District Police Command.

 Victim tells her story

Narrating her experience, the victim, who did not want to be identified, said she was returning from her trading activities at Tudu, in Accra, on October 6, 2015, when suddenly the suspect jumped from a moving motorbike and pulled a knife.

She said the suspect snatched her handbag which contained GH¢32 and ordered her to surrender her mobile phone which she was holding at the time.

The suspect, she said, jumped onto the motorbike and they sped off immediately after taking her bag and mobile phone.

According to her, she raised an alarm which attracted some residents and bystanders.

A driver of a vehicle, she said, gave the motorbike a hot chase and in the course of escaping, the motorbike fell into a ditch.

The victim said the suspect, who was the pillion rider, fell from the motorbike and was apprehended by the mob while the rider escaped with the mobile phone.

The lady’s hand bag was found on the suspect and the knife was later retrieved by the police when they visited the scene.

At the Odorkor Police station, Abelenya admitted the offence in his caution statement but failed to provide the name of his accomplice; he claimed he was a commercial motorbike rider he had hired and did not know his name.

Meanwhile, the Accra circuit court, presided over by Justice Aboagye Tanor, sentenced Abelenya to 15 years in prison with hard labour yesterday when the suspect appeared before it for the first time.

Abelenya pleaded guilty after the prosecuting officer, Chief Inspector Edward Afful, read the facts of the case at the court.