Court remands land guards over alleged threat of death

An Accra Circuit Court has remanded two supposed land guards who allegedly threatened to shoot and kill a Comet Property Limited Security personnel.Kwaku Badu, 51, and Issah Oko Okai, 38, are alleged of arranged a group of land guards and causing unlawful damage to the windscreen of an excavator costing GH?44,000.00 owned by Comet Property Limited.Badu and Okai are jointly indicted for conspiracy to commit a crime, prohibition of land guard activity, and threat of death.Badu is also facing additional charges of causing unlawful damage.The accused have pleaded not guilty to all the charges levelled against them.Mr Frank Yao Amegashie, counsel for the accused pleaded for bail for his clients, arguing that they would not interfere with Police investigations.'After studying the charge sheet carefully, My Lord, the accused persons will not interfere in investigation because they have been given police enquiry bail, which they will avail themselves to stand trial.'It is our humble prayer that the cour t will exercise its discretion by granting the accused persons bail as they have people of substances to stand as sureties,' he added.The prosecution, led by Superintendent of Police Augustus Yirenkyi, opposed their release, claiming that the accused would commit other offences because they had been granted police inquiry bail.'The presence of the accused persons in the community has become a serious threat to the people and I pray that they are remanded into police custody for investigations by the police,' he stated.After hearing both counsel and prosecution, the court, presided over by Mr Samuel Bright Acquah, concluded that the accused posed a threat to the state.As a result, Badu and Okai were remanded to Nsawam Prison and scheduled to appear in court again on July 22, 2024.Meanwhile their accomplices, Abdul Razak Hussein, Mogabe and Redo, who are all land guards, are currently at large.The facts as presented by the prosecution was that Mr Kingsley Adjei is a security coordinator at Comet Pro perty Limited, Accra, while Badu, Okai and their accomplices were residents of Abokobi and its environs.According to the prosecution, on May 5, 2024, the petitioner and other workers were sent to work on Comet Property Limited's 407 acres of land in Abokobi.It said Badu, Okai, and their accomplices, claiming to be from the Numoo Mashie family, attacked the workers at the site, causing GH?44,000.00 in damage to the excavator windscreen.The prosecution said that the accused further threatened the workers and one Comet Property Limited Security officer, Robert Klutsey, that if they saw him on the land again, they would shoot and kill him.It stated that a case was filed at the police station, and Badu and Okai were arrested.The accused provided investigation caution statements in which they denied the charges levelled against them.Source: Ghana News Agency