Two friends, who conspired and kidnapped a 14-year-old boy at Ejisu in the Ashanti region, have been sentenced to a total of 12 years imprisonment in hard labour by the Juaben Circuit Court.
Thirty-eight-year-old unemployed Charles Appiah and Manasseh Fumey, who is 29, lured the teenager to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Junction in Kumasi.
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They bundled him into a waiting Toyota car to Apatrapa, another suburb and demanded 3,000 dollars ransom from the boy’s relatives.
The two appeared before the Juaben Circuit Court for the first
time on Friday after their arrest by the Ejisu Police.
They faced conspiracy to commit crime and kidnapping
charges.
Mr Appiah was sentenced to five years and nine years for the two counts of conspiracy to commit crime and kidnapping respectively, to run concurrently.
He pleaded guilty to all charges.
Mr Fumey, a security guard at Living Waters Hospital at Ejisu was slapped with three years imprisonment in hard labour for failing to report a felony.
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He had earlier pleaded not guilty with explanation to
conspiracy, as well as not guilty to kidnapping.
Prosecution told the court the two friends, who lived in the
same vicinity with the family of the victim, planned and kidnapped the boy
with the help of two others now at large.
The suspects lured the second year Junior High School (JHS) pupil from his Kwamo family house, chloroformed him and took him to a secluded storey-building at Apatrapa where he was locked up in a room on March 24, 2019.
Mr Appiah is said to have paid for a room in the quiet
area.
Inspector Victoria Mensah told the court that when the victim regained consciousness, one of the kidnappers , identified only as Felix, who is on the run, asked for the victim’s grandmother’s phone number, called and demanded a ransom before his release.
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However, on March 27, 2019, shouts from the victim who had then
managed to cut the rope the suspects used to tie him up attracted a passer-by
who informed police at Tanoso, leading to his rescue.
Mr Fumey told the court that though he knew the plan of his friends to kidnap the victim a month ahead, he wanted them to execute it before he would inform the police.
He earlier told the court that he did not take part in planning and kidnapping of the 14-year-old JHS pupil.
According to him, he reported the plot by Mr Appiah and his colleagues to police two days after the victim was reported missing.
The judge, His Honour, Abdul Yusuf Assibey, described his
explanation as unreasonable.
He cited Section 22 of the Criminal Act which states: “Every person who, knowing that a person designs to commit or is committing a felony, fails to use all reasonable means to prevent the commission or completing thereof, is guilty of a misdeamenour.”
The judge convicted Mr Fumey for failing to report a felony to the police and sentenced him to three years imprisonment in hard labour.
Meanwhile, the court has issued a warrant for the arrest of fugitives Augustine and Felix while Mr Fumey will re-appear before the court on May 6, 2019 to face a charge of kidnapping.