Several years after engaging the police in a bloody hide-and-seek game, one of Ghana�s most notorious armed robbers, John Kofi Fiagbedzi alias Spider, has been killed.
The 30-year-old Fiagbdedzi, who is also known as Leon, was killed in the early hours of yesterday when he and one Mathias Kwesi Tsegah, an accomplice, attempted to escape police arrest after robbing a Ghanaian High Commissioner to a neighbouring country and top member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at his West Legon residence in Accra.
Narrating the incident to journalists in Accra yesterday, Regional Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Rose Bio-Atinga indicated that around 2:50am, her outfit had information that some armed men had attacked somebody at West Legon.
�On arrival, the police forcefully entered the house and laid ambush, waiting for the robbers.�
Not long after the police had laid ambush, she narrated, two of the robbers emerged from the house of the victim amidst firing of shots, trying to scale a wall which had a security wire mesh on it.
�Upon seeing the police, Spider, who had two strong foreign-made pistols in his hand, fired indiscriminately at the police whilst at the same time trying to help his accomplice scale the wall first,� she noted.
In the process, she said the police were able to shoot and kill him instantly.
The Regional Commander indicated that Spider�s accomplice, who sustained gunshot wounds, managed to escape.
The police later found out that Spider�s two pistols could load up to 26 rounds of ammunition. He had on him some jewelry, a car jerk, screw driver, and two mobile phones. The police also found on him, about $6,680.
Spider�s 25-year-old wife, Shakira Osman, with whom he had a four-month-old baby boy, had been invited by the police for questioning.
She was said to have denied knowing the whereabouts of her husband or even hearing from him.
But when police retrieved Spider�s mobile phone, they saw a photograph of his wife and their four-month-old baby on it, an indication that they met not too long ago, contrary Shakira�s claims.
According to a source, she broke down and wailed after seeing the bullet-ridden body of her husband.
Until his death yesterday, Spider was said to have been the ringleader of a group of notorious armed robbers who operated on the Accra-Kumasi and the Volta region highways.
He was said to be part of the group that robbed a Ghanaian woman from the United States of an amount of $64,000, together with accomplices Aaron (now in police custody), and one Mathias, who is currently at large.
In 2008, he robbed a foreigner of a Pathfinder cross country vehicle and other valuables whilst in early 2009, he was said to have also robbed a forex bureau of a huge amount of money near the St John�s Senior High School in Accra.
Furthermore, he was believed to have been part of a car-snatching syndicate, introducing a number of people to robbery.
During the 2009 yam festival in Ho, Spider was said to have violently robbed and shot a driver in the leg, snatching his RAV4 vehicle. But his accomplices and some clearing agents were arrested when they attempted to sell the vehicle.
Later, he was said to have robbed a white man, who stabbed him in the stomach. He was taken to the Police Hospital where he escaped and went into hiding.
He however mustered courage to call the police with a land line and threatened them that before they arrest him again, he would have succeeded in killing at least 10 police officers.
<<Print>>