Bloody Night. 8 Armed robbers killed in shoot-out with police

IN what police say is the single biggest operation against armed robbery in the country, eight armed robbers all believed to be of Fulani extraction, were gunned down by the police in a hail of bullets on the Anwiankwanta-Bekwai road in the Ashanti Region Monday night.
The armed men had barricaded the road at about 7pm robbing travellers when the police, acting upon a tip off, descended on them.
Police identified one of them as Ahmed Boakye, a Fulani man, who was involved in a robbery case at a filling station on April 22, 2007. He was granted bail by a High Court in Kumasi where he was on trial.
Four others believed to have sustained gunshot wounds, managed to escape into the bush and police have called on the public especially medical centres to be on the look out for any one with a suspected gunshot wound who may seek medical attention.
The Ashanti Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Patrick Timbillah, was excited at the operation and said, “We are on the right path and there is no turning back”
“I promised that we were taking the fight to them and that is what we are just doing,” Timbillah told journalists in Kumasi today.
One policeman was injured on the hand from pellets fired from a locally made pistol the robbers used.
A police vehicle used in the operation was also dented as the robbers fired back in an attempt to flee arrest.
Police retrieved from the robbers, four locally made pistols, 11 unspent cartridges, three spent cartridges six mobile phones, five flashlights and a number of talismans.
Hundreds of people poured into the precincts of the Regional Police Headquarters where the bullet-ridden bodies of the robbers lay. Some cursed them even in death.
DCOP Timbillah said that at about 6.20pm on Monday police had information that some Fulani men had blocked the road, robbing people of their personal belongings.
A detachment of personnel from the Buffalo Unit was detailed to the spot.
The regional commander stated that while the police were getting nearer the scene, they saw a number of vehicles doing the u-turn to escape attack from the armed men.
The policemen continued to the area but before they would reach the spot, the robbers started firing at them resulting in the injury to the policemen.
On realising that the police were closing in on them with other vehicles, the robbers started running away but the police opened fire on them killing eight in the process.
Their bodies had been deposited at the morgue pending further investigations.
Before this incident the biggest single attack on armed robbers was in 2002, when police killed five armed men who attacked a warehouse in Kumasi. A policeman lost his life in the process as the robbers hit back.