The suspect
RESIDENTS OF Taifa, a suburb of Ashaiman, yesterday caught a suspected fowl thief who had concealed his booty in his underwear.
The suspect, who gave his name only as Joe but known to his friends as Big Joe, was said to have cut through the net of someone’s hencoop and made off with two hens, with one hidden in his underwear while the other was hidden in his shirt.
A resident, who reportedly spotted the 26-year-old thief that morning at about 6:30am, warned the suspect to let the fowls go but he allegedly refused and started moving away.
The resident, on realising that the suspect might escape with the fowls, quickly raised an alarm which attracted some people to the scene. The suspect immediately took to his heels upon seeing the crowd.
He was pursued by the angry crowd to Christian Village, a neighbouring community, where he was caught after abandoning the fowls in the middle of the chase.
Interestingly, he reportedly run into the Global Revival Ministry International, a church at Christian Village, and knelt in front of the pulpit, perhaps to seek for forgiveness or say his last prayers before his pursuers grab him.
The crowd, obviously amused by the action of the suspect, reportedly waited for a while for him to complete whatever he was doing before they apprehended him.
He was subjected to severe beatings from the church room to the place he stole the birds, where some residents also took advantage to unleash their anger on him with sticks and stones among other things.
It took the timely intervention of a man to save him from being beaten to death. He was subsequently released to go after the severe beatings meted out to him.
By the time DAILY GUIDE arrived on the scene, the suspect had sustained serious injuries on his head, hand and other parts of his body.
Speaking to the paper, some residents disclosed that animal theft had become rampant in the area.
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