Tribunal directs police to search for illegal weapons

Tamale The Tamale Circuit Tribunal has directed the police to search for and retrieve all illegal firearms being held by civilians in the Tamale municipality to stem the crime wave involving the use of such weapons. Mr S.K. Teye, the tribunal chairman, gave the directive when the tribunal sentenced 36-year-old Tahiru Ahmed, a driver's mate, to five years' imprisonment in hard labour for various offences including illegal possession of firearms and threatening a police officer with death. The accused was convicted on his own plea. Mr Teye decried the state of lawlessness and anarchy that is gradually becoming the norm in Tamale and attributed this to the proliferation of illegal weapons. He warned that the courts and tribunals would not sit down unconcerned for criminals to hold law-abiding citizens to ransom. Prosecuting, Assistant Superintendent of Police, J.Y. Agorvie, told the tribunal that on May 27, Mr Alhassan Ibrahim, a 38-year-old trader and complainant in the case went to his house at Lamakara, a suburb of Tamale and met his sister-in-law in tears. When he asked what had happened, she said the accused person who also lived in the same area had beaten her up. While the complainant was on his way to the house of the accused to investigate the matter, the accused and four others met him and beat him up. ASP Agorvie said the complainant made a report to the police and when the police went to arrest the accused on May 29, he threatened them with a dagger forcing them to retreat. On June three, when the police went back with reinforcement, the accused again threatened to kill them with a locally-manufactured pistol. He was however overpowered.