Murder of Ardeyman devt chief - Police nab three
Three persons have been arrested in connection with the gruesome murder of the development chief of Ardeyman last Friday near Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region.
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The suspects are Asafoatse Nii Quaye Kortey, aka Cobra, 39, a carpenter; Musah Mohammed, 28, a scrap dealer, and Rahim Yakubu, 20, a herdsman.
They were arrested at the Ridge View Hotel at Kwabenya in Accra where they are suspected to have attempted to launch a similar attack on another victim who was then lodging in the hotel.
Nii Tetteh Saban was found lying supine in a pool of blood with bullet cartridges scattered in a room at his family house at about 5a.m. by some of his family members.
Attempted assassination
Briefing journalists in Accra yesterday, the Public Relations Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Mrs Afia Tenge, said the operation to assassinate the next victim by the three suspects was foiled through the swift intervention of the police upon a tip-off.
Following the arrest, she said, the police retrieved a pistol with 17 rounds of ammunition which was in the possession of Kortey.
Two unregistered motorbikes, which are suspected to be among a number of motorbikes used by the suspected murderers during the invasion of the Ardeyman family stool house on the day the development chief was murdered, have also been retrieved from the three suspects.
Facts
According to Mrs Tenge, police investigations had revealed that at about 12:30 a.m. on Friday, June 9, 2017, Nii Saban and some family leaders gathered at the stool house at Ardeyman to perform traditional rites for the lifting of the ban on drumming and noise making, to make way for the celebration of Homowo, a festival celebrated in the Ga State.
While the leaders were performing the rites, she said thugs, including the three suspects and others now at large, armed with AK 47 rifles, pistols, machetes and clubs allegedly attacked the traditional leaders.
They are said to have fired gunshots indiscriminately and in the process shot at three persons, including Nii Saban.
It is said that they chased Nii Saban when he tried to escape from further gunshots and when he entered the room of a relative for safety, the assailants fired at him and inflicted machete wounds on him.
Mrs Tenge said the thugs later dragged and dumped the unconscious Nii Saban into another room and fled.
She added that when the police visited the scene after receiving distress calls, they found Nii Saban in a pool of blood but he was pronounced dead when he was taken to hospital.
One of the two victims who sustained gunshot wounds was treated and discharged at the hospital while the other victim who was also shot on the left side of his chest, is still on admission at an undisclosed hospital.