Armed Robbers Arrested For Killing Italian Businesswoman

The police in Kumasi have arrested two suspected armed robbers believed to have shot and killed an Italian national, Paola Badalassi, during a robbery attack at Teshie in Accra.

Awudu Mumuni aka Baba Ayitey, 45, and Charles Agyeman aka Nana Yaw, 23, were arrested by the Buffalo Unit in Kumasi during a robbery expedition on Friday, July 13, 2012 and were subsequently sent to Accra where the heinous crime was committed.

Fuseni Gariba aka Burger, 32, one of the four suspects who carried out the Teshie operation, was arrested at Weija in Accra on Wednesday, June 20, a few days after the robbery, while the fourth person, the driver of the gang, known only as Pee-co-pe, is on the run.

The suspects, upon interrogation, admitted to being part of the robbery which led to the death of the Italian woman, with Fuseni Gariba confessing to shooting her to death.

At a press briefing yesterday, the Accra Regional Crime Officer, Emmanuel Frank Adufati, said the gang trailed the deceased, Paola Badalassi, a 49-year-old Italian businesswoman who was visiting a relation in the country.

While out at Osu to while away time with her host, on the evening of Monday 18, 2012, the suspects, unknown to the victims, parked a waiting taxi around which they used to trail them to Teshie Malik, where they fiercely attacked and killed the deceased.

Later, Nana Yaw and Baba Ayitey left Accra for Kumasi where they engaged in other robbery incidents. Baba Ayitey, an ex-convict, was released from the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons in 2003 after serving his term for robbery.

Later, in February 2010, he was again arrested for robbery, tried and convicted for seven years but he was released this year after he served two years after he won an appeal that overturned the first sentence of seven years.

He came back and further formed an armed gang and began his usual expeditions, in one of which Paola was a victim. Mr Adufati was grateful to the public for joining forces with the police to combat crime.

He asked that people who knew the whereabouts of the runaway suspect, Pee-co-pe, to avail themselves to the regional police command to help in the ongoing investigations.

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