Jack Bebli is dead

Page 31: Daily Graphic, May 19, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
ALHAJI Shehu Mohammed Bebli, popularly called RSM Jack Bebli, died yesterday at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital where he had been on admission for a few days.
He was 78.
RSM Bebli shot to fame while he was with the erstwhile Police Commandos Section of the Panthers Unit.
On July 13, 2001, he and five others were sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment each for their role in a highly publicised highway gold robbery which took place at the Abotsia Junction near Apam on February 16, 1999.
Those with whom he was sentenced were Philip Asamoah, alias Agingo; Isaac Frimpong, alias Nii Baby Tei; Patrick Boakye Mprah; ex-Corporal James Doli and Kofi Bokor, alias Kofi Bebli.
The Chief Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Prisons Service, DSP Gloria Fati Abudu, told the Daily Graphic that Jack Bebli had been rushed to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital last Thursday.
She said the hospital authorities informed the management of the Prisons Service about his death yesterday.
Jack Bebli and his accomplices were accused of robbing a bullion van and stealing gold being conveyed from Amansie in the Ashanti Region to Accra.
On the day of the robbery, Frimpong, Mprah and Bokor had driven to the Yamoransa Junction in a convoy of three vehicles to lay ambush, and while waiting, the West Coast Allied Services bullion, driven by Asamoah and containing eight boxes of gold, appeared.
The robbers, some of whom were dressed in military and police uniforms and masked, followed the van to the Abotsia Junction, where they overtook and blocked it.
They then started shooting indiscriminately, dragged Asamoah down and took away the gold, after inflicting some injuries on the occupants of the bullion.
At the time of the sentence, Jack Bebli was 70.