After months of evasion

Police grab terror fugitive
…who dragged Policeman with motorbike
Posted: Wednesday, June 03, 2009


By Charles Takyi Boadu
A 25-year old fugitive commercial motor rider (Okadaman), who made a police officer, Constable Lot Joseph Mensah, suffer excruciating pain, after dragging him behind his motorbike for a distance of over 300 meters, has finally been arrested.
Theophilus Quaicoe, who went into hiding after escaping arrest, was nabbed by the police at Osu, when he and another person were alleged to have robbed an internet café of a laptop computer.
He has since been charged for committing criminal and motor traffic offences.
His charges range from causing harm to a serving police officer, causing damage to a police uniform, using a motorbike for commercial purposes, which is not allowed by the law, to riding a motorbike without a license.
Upon hearing of his arrest, the police at Korle-Bu sent a signal to the Osu Police Station requesting for him to be transferred to the station to face charges, after he was granted bail by a court on the case in which he an another person are accused of stealing a laptop computer.
At the Korle-Bu Police Station, Quaicoe admitted to the District Commander, Superintendent Ernest K. Maayeb, in the presence of an independent witness, of having committed the offence and pleaded for mercy.
Though he is said to have admitted to committing the offence, when Quaicoe appeared before the Motor Court yesterday, he pleaded not guilty to all the charges preferred against him.
He was however remanded into prison custody by the court, presided over by Justice Nimako, and is scheduled to reappear on June 19, 2009.
On January 28, 2009, the accused dragged the policeman in question with his motorbike for over 300 metres, from the bus stop opposite the administration block of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), to the main trafficlights.
This was after the officer attempted to impound his motorbike during a swoop sanctioned by the Regional Police Command to clamp down on the activities and operations of these ‘Okadamen’ who were operating illegally.
In the process of impounding the motorbike, the Constable attempted to put his truncheon between the spokes of the back wheel of the motorcycle.
The truncheon however ended up stuck between the mud guard of the motorbike and the tyre.
The accused thus sped off with the policeman hanging loosely behind the motorbike, whilst he screamed for help.
But, this did not prevent the ‘Okadaman’ from dragging him, as people poured to the streets and pavements of Korle-Bu to catch a glimpse of what looked like a ‘Hollywood style movie’.
All this while, the ‘Okadaman’ was blowing the horn of his motorbike, for oncoming vehicles and road users to give way.
For fear of loosing his life or hitting his head against the asphalt road, the policeman held onto the carrier of the motorbike with his left hand. The policeman released his hold on the motorbike when they got to the trafficlights, where some his colleagues were directing traffic, when the motorbike slowed down.
The accused again sped off for fear of being arrested.
When he was rescued, Constable Lot, whose wife had given birth only a few days before the incident, sustained various degrees of injuries, whilst his police uniform was torn beyond imagination.
Theophilus Quaicoe was given a hot chase, but managed to escape arrest, compelling the police to declare him wanted, until his arrest on Monday, May 25, 2009.